The Daily Fuckup

By Jan. 20, 2024, Donald Trump was already fighting two separate ballot cases that were moving on different tracks.

In Colorado, the U.S. Supreme Court had granted review on Jan. 5 and set oral argument for Feb. 8 in the challenge to the state ruling that had kept Trump off the Republican presidential primary ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That put the case on an accelerated federal timetable before the campaign had even finished its opening arguments.

Maine was in a different posture. On Dec. 28, 2023, the Maine secretary of state ruled that Trump’s petition for the Maine Republican Party’s presidential primary was invalid because of a false declaration of qualification on his candidate consent form. But by Jan. 20, the Maine Law Court had not reached the merits. Instead, it had already issued an order to show cause on Jan. 19 asking whether the appeal should be tossed as interlocutory — in other words, whether the court could hear it at all at that stage.

That procedural question mattered. The Maine high court later answered it on Jan. 24, dismissing the appeal as interlocutory and not justiciable without deciding whether Trump belonged on the ballot. So on Jan. 20, the Maine case was still alive, but only as a fight over timing and jurisdiction, not a final ruling on eligibility.

The result was a two-front legal problem for Trump. One case was already on the Supreme Court’s calendar. The other was still being sorted out by Maine judges before a merits decision could even happen. The campaign wanted the ballot dispute to stay narrow and local. By Jan. 20, it was neither.