Will Donald Trump be on the Ballot in New Hampshire? – Many questions were asked this week about former President Donald Trump.
Could he actually be convicted of any of the 91 charges he now faces, and could he even go to prison?
Can Trump still run for office in such a scenario, and can he serve if convicted?
Legal experts are debating whether Trump could pardon himself of the federal charges, but also what the state charges mean if he were to be convicted.
Then there is the question of whether the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States could bar Trump from holding office.
That could be less hypothetical, as Republicans in New Hampshire are not quarreling over the possibility that the former president could be left off the state’s 2024 primary ballot.
Trump won the 2016 New Hampshire Republican primary with 35.2 percent of the vote – while his closest opponent, former Ohio Governor John Kasich, came in second with 15.7 percent.
Trump Has an Issue in New Hampshire
As is usual in the presidential race, the Granite State is the first in the country to hold a primary – typically a week after the Iowa caucus. The primary has yet to be scheduled, but it will likely be sometime in the middle of January.
As noted, the question now isn’t so much when the primary will be held, but whether Trump will even be part of it.
Earlier this week, New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan requested legal guidance from the state’s Attorney General’s office, which said it is now carefully reviewing the legal issues involved.
“Both the Secretary of State’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office are aware of public discourse regarding the potential applicability of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution to the upcoming presidential election cycle, including misinformation asserting or implying that the Secretary of State’s Office has already taken a position on or is seeking to take certain action with respect to Donald Trump’s candidacy for the Republican National Convention’s nomination for president in the 2024 United States Presidential Election,” Attorney General John M. Formella and Secretary of State David M. Scanlan said via a joint statement released on Tuesday.
“Neither the Secretary of State’s Office nor the Attorney General’s Office has taken any position regarding the potential applicability of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution to the upcoming presidential election cycle,” they added. “The Secretary of State’s Office has requested the Attorney General’s Office to advise the Secretary of State regarding the meaning of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the provision’s potential applicability to the upcoming presidential election cycle.”
Efforts to Keep Donald Trump Off the Ballot
New Hampshire is clearly trying to get ahead of the issue – and for good reason. As NBC News reported, the secretary of state’s office was flooded with hundreds of calls on Monday from Donald Trump supporters seeking reassurance that the former president is going to be on the ballot next year after conservative talk show host Charlie Kirk falsely told listeners the state is trying to sideline Trump.
However, on Wednesday, The New York Times also reported that a long-shot presidential candidate had filed a lawsuit in state court seeking an injunction to keep the former president off the ballot, while a former Republican candidate for Senate has also urged the New Hampshire secretary of state to bring a case that could put the issue before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Free Speech for the People, a liberal-leaning group that unsuccessfully tried to strike House Republicans from the ballot in 2022, sent a letter to the secretaries of state in New Hampshire, as well as Florida, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin, urging them to bar Mr. Trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment,” the paper of record noted.
Republicans in the Granite State have already pushed back on any effort to keep Trump off the ballot.
“I don’t think the effort to limit the options for our primary voters has any legs whatsoever,” Chris Ager, chair of the state Republican Party, told Politico.com.
Yes, Laurence H. Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard who believes the insurrection disqualification clearly applies to the former president, told The New York Times, “When it gets to the Supreme Court, as it surely will, this will test the dedication of the justices to principles of law, more than almost anything has for a very long time… because they will obviously realize that telling the leading candidate of one major political party, ‘no, no way, you’re not eligible’ is no small matter.”
Donald Trump and the Issue of the 14th Amendment
As previously reported, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review this month, William Baude of the University of Chicago Law School and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas School of Law made a case that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment should disqualify Trump from running for president again. The authors noted, “Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids holding office by former office holders who then participate in insurrection or rebellion. Because of a range of misperceptions and mistaken assumptions, Section Three’s full legal consequences have not been appreciated or enforced.”
It almost certainly will be up to the Supreme Court to decide, and Tribe is also certainly correct – this will be no small matter.
Author Experience and Expertise
A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.
From the Vault
Donald Trump May Have a New Problem: Melania Trump
Barack Obama Scolds Americans for Offering ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ During Maui Tragedy
Donald Trump Keeps Making ‘Chilling’ Threats That Could Land Him in Jail
