Colorado Supreme Court rules Trump can’t appear on 2024 ballot: Live

Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina on Tuesday said he would introduce legislation stopping state officials from keeping presidential candidates off state ballots, after the Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday held that Donald Trump was ineligible because of the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection” clause.

The proposed Constitutional Election Integrity Act would confine such 14th Amendment questions to the US Supreme Court alone.

“Regardless of whether you support or oppose former President Donald Trump, it is outrageous to see left-wing activists make a mockery of our political system by scheming with partisan state officials and pressuring judges to remove him from the ballot,” Senator Thillis said on Tuesday.

“American voters, not partisan activists, should decide who we elect as our President. The Constitutional Election Integrity Act would put any constitutional challenges in the sole place they belong: the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Donald Trump has never avoided a political fight if he could help it, so it’s all the more striking that he didn’t mention the recent Colorado ruling during his remarks tonight at a campaign rally in Waterloo, Iowa.

Has he finallly got the message from his lawyers that he shouldn’t attack his legal opponents?

Is he still formulating talking points?

It’s hard to say at this point.

Whatever the reason for the uncharacteristic silence, Mr Trump is not letting the Colorado ruling go unchallenged.

His team has already vowed to appeal the ruling and seek a stay.

In a strange twist, Colorado’s recent ruling to bar Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 GOP ballot could lead to another candidate striking his name: Vivek Ramaswamy.

Mr Trump’s GOP rival vowed on Tuesday to remove his name from consideration in the state if the “disastrous” ruling was allowed to stand.

“I pledge to *withdraw* from the Colorado GOP primary unless Trump is also allowed to be on the state’s ballot, and I demand that Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley to do the same immediately – or else they are tacitly endorsing this illegal maneuver which will have disastrous consequences for our country,” he wrote in statement on X.

“Today’s decision is the latest election interference tactic to silence political opponents and swing the election for whatever puppet the Democrats put up this time by depriving Americans of the right to vote for their candidate of choice,” he added.

US President Joe Biden’s approval rating hit an all-time low on Monday, with just 34 per cent of respondents to a new poll saying they approve of the job he is doing in the White House.

The remaining five per cent of people surveyed said they had not yet made up their minds about the president’s first term.

The Biden administration’s approach to tackling illegal immigration (69 per cent disapproval) and taming inflation (68 per cent disapproval) were identified as areas of particular concern, according to Monmouth.

Meanwhile, 53 per cent were disappointed with the president’s record on job creation and 52 per cent by his administration’s work on bolstering transport and energy infrastructure.

“The Biden administration keeps touting their infrastructure investments and a host of positive economic indicators,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

“Those data points may be factual, but most Americans are still smarting from higher prices caused by post-pandemic inflation. This seems to be what’s driving public opinion. There is political danger in pushing a message that basically tells people their take on their own situation is wrong.”

Monmouth’s latest findings mean the president has suffered a 10 per cent slide in his approval ratings from the 14-month high of 44 per cent he enjoyed in July and is now one percentage point less popular than his own vice president Kamala Harris.

The Trump campaign is already fundraising off a decision today from the Colorado Supreme Court barring him from the 2024 ballot for his influence on the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

The campaign accused the Democrats of trying to “amass total control over America by rigging the election,” adding. “This is how dictatorships are born.”

More details on the ruling here.

Donald Trump is addressing a campaign crowd in Waterloo, Iowa tonight.

So far, he’s stuck to his standard stump speech, but he’s sure to mention the recent Colorado ruling.

We’re monitoring his remarks for all the latest.

You can watch a live stream of the speech here.

The Trump campaign has collated data indicating that the frontrunner and former president will clinch the nomination by March, The Washington Post reports.

The former president’s campaign anticipates having won enough delegates to move to a general election footing months before the GOP convention.

The campaign has analysed internal and public polls and found that Mr Trump may be able to gather 973 delegates by Super Tuesday, which is set for 5 March. By 19 March, the campaign estimates to have gathered 1,478 delegates, hundreds more than the 1,215 needed to get the nomination.

The next day, at a rally in Reno, Nevada, he accused migrants of waging an “invasion” and falsely claimed people are “charging across the border by the hundreds of thousands”.

“This is an invasion. This is like a military invasion,” he said. “Drugs, criminals, gang members and terrorists are pouring into our country at record levels. We’ve never seen anything like it. They’re taking over our cities.”

Alex Woodward has the full story.

The Trump campaign on Tuesday vowed to challenge a Colorado ruling barring him from the state’s 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment “insurrection” clause.

“The Colorado Supreme Court issued a completely flawed decision tonight and we will swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and a concurrent request for a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision,” Trump 2024 spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.

The campaign accused Democrats of being “in a state of paranoia over the growing, dominant lead President Trump has amassed in the polls” and of having “lost faith in the failed Biden presidency.”

Here’s more in the ruling that set him off.

A ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday was the first among any state supreme court to consider the question of his eligibility, following a wave of lawsuits challenging his presidential candidacy under the US Constitution’s “insurrection” clause.

“We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” according to the unsigned order from the court’s four-justice majority.

“We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us,” the justices wrote. “We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”

Alex Woordward is following the story.