The Michigan Supreme Court denied an attempt Wednesday to remove Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot, bolstering the chances that the US Supreme Court will soon hear an appeal of a Colorado ruling that disqualified the former president from that state’s primary.
In a brief order, Michigan’s high court said it was “not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court” after an earlier appeal sought to make Trump ineligible under the Insurrection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The plaintiffs claimed Trump’s efforts to overturn President Biden’s victory that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot constituted evidence that he unconstitutionally “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” and may no longer hold office.
Trump, 77, wrote in a Truth Social post the Michigan justices “strongly and rightfully denied the Desperate Democrat attempt to take the leading Candidate in the 2024 Presidential Election, me, off the ballot in the Great State of Michigan.”
“This pathetic gambit to rig the Election has failed all across the Country, including in States that have historically leaned heavily toward the Democrats. Colorado is the only State to have fallen prey to the scheme,” he said.
Only one of the seven justices, Elizabeth Welch, dissented from the ruling, saying the court should have issued a ruling on the merits of the petition rather than jurisdiction.
Welch did affirm that Michigan’s Court of Appeals and Court of Claims were correct in ruling that the state’s secretary of state could not determine whether a presidential candidate was eligible to be on the ballot.
However, she argued the plaintiffs should have been able “to renew their legal efforts as to the Michigan general election later in 2024 should Trump become the Republican nominee for President of the United States or seek such office as an independent candidate.”
Those appellants had originally petitioned for the former president to be disqualified from Michigan’s Feb. 27 primary, but Welch also noted that no political parties were yet included in the litigation.
Unlike with the Colorado decision, Welch also said “no analogous provision in the Michigan Election Law … requires someone seeking the office of President of the United States to attest to their legal qualification to hold the office.”
Four of the seven Colorado Supreme Court justices found that Trump fomented an insurrection by encouraging his supporters to protest the congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 election win.
On Wednesday, Trump thundered to his more than six million followers on Truth Social that they would have to agitate against another attempt to disqualify him from office.
“We have to prevent the 2024 Election from being Rigged and Stolen like they stole 2020,” he said, before attacking Biden for “violently destroying everything in his sight, from our once-great Economy to our once-fair Justice System.”
“We have to save our Country from decline and the Radical Left. Make America Great Again!” he added.
Attorneys for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment about a potential Supreme Court appeal of Colorado’s decision, which has been stayed until Jan. 4.
The former president is the odds-on favorite for the 2024 Republican nomination, leading the field by more than 50 percentage points, according to the RealClearPolitics average.
He is also beating Biden by more than two percentage points nationally in the popular vote, the polling aggregator shows.