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Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has expressed strong opposition to the Colorado Supreme Court’s removal of former President Trump from the state’s ballot.
Speaking at the Westside Conservative Club Breakfast in Iowa, DeSantis labeled the decision as a “stunt” by Democrats and the media aimed at bolstering Trump’s support in the GOP primary. He argued, “What the left and the media and the Democrats are doing — they’re doing all this stuff, to basically solidify support in the primary for him, get him into the general, and the whole general election is going to be all this legal stuff.”

DeSantis speculated on the effectiveness of this strategy, saying, “The question is — is that going to work? And I think they have a playbook that unfortunately will work,” suggesting it could help the Democratic candidate in the general election. DeSantis emphasized his own approach, stating, “What they don’t want is to have somebody like me, who will make the election not about all those other issues, but it’ll make the election about the failures of Biden, the failures of the left and how we’re going to be able to turn the country around.”
The controversy follows a 4-3 ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court, which disqualified Trump under the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause due to his involvement on January 6, 2021. The court has given Trump’s legal team until January 4 to seek a review from the US Supreme Court. DeSantis, echoing several GOP lawmakers, believes the Supreme Court, with its conservative majority, will overturn the decision.
Other Republican candidates, including Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy, have also criticized the decision, with Ramaswamy vowing to withdraw from the Colorado ballot if Trump is excluded and Christie advocating for voters to decide Trump’s political fate.