The Daily Fuckup

By the end of Dec. 28, 2023, Donald Trump had more than one state fighting over whether he could appear on the Republican primary ballot. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows ruled that Trump was ineligible for the state’s 2024 GOP primary under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, a decision that came a week after the Colorado Supreme Court said he could not be placed on that state’s primary ballot. Maine’s ruling was issued with a built-in stay, meaning the practical effect was not immediate and the fight was headed straight into appeal and review. ([washingtonpost.com](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/28/maine-decision-remove-trump-pdf/?utm_source=openai))

The two decisions mattered because they pushed the Trump ballot dispute beyond a single state and into a broader constitutional test. Colorado’s court had already concluded on Dec. 19, 2023, that Trump was disqualified under Section 3. Bellows then said in her own written decision that Maine law required her to decide the challenge before the ballot moved forward. The result was not a final nationwide ruling, but it was a second official finding that the same constitutional question could keep him off a primary ballot. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/d16dd8f354eeaf450558378c65fd79a2?utm_source=openai))

That left Trump facing a legal problem, not just a political one. His campaign and his lawyers now had to answer the same question in more than one venue at the same time: whether the events around Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump’s role in trying to overturn the 2020 election, amount to disqualifying conduct under the 14th Amendment. Trump has denied wrongdoing and his lawyers have attacked the ballot challenges as improper. But the more states and courts that took the claim seriously, the harder it became to treat the issue as a one-off stunt. ([washingtonpost.com](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/28/maine-decision-remove-trump-pdf/?utm_source=openai))

Even with appeals pending, the political burden was already real. The rulings forced Republicans to defend a front-runner whose eligibility was now being challenged in multiple states, and they kept Jan. 6 at the center of the 2024 race instead of letting it fade into the background. Maine did not create the legal theory. It extended it. And with a second state now on the board, Trump’s ballot fight had become bigger than a local dispute over one primary filing. ([washingtonpost.com](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/28/maine-decision-remove-trump-pdf/?utm_source=openai))