Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy pledged Tuesday night to withdraw from the Colorado Republican primary ballot after the state’s Supreme Court ruled that former President Donald Trump was disqualified from the 2024 ballot for refusing to accept the previous election results and for his alleged role in the Capitol Hill protest on January 6, 2021.
Sharing a video that quickly went viral on social media, Ramaswamy wrote, “I pledge to withdraw from the Colorado GOP primary ballot until Trump is also allowed to be on the ballot, and I demand that Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley do the same immediately – or else they are tacitly endorsing this illegal maneuver which will have disastrous consequences for our country.”
Prior to the release of his video, Ramaswamy released a lengthy statement on X, criticizing the Colorado Supreme Court for removing Trump from the ballot.
“This is what an *actual* attack on democracy looks like: in an un-American, unconstitutional, and *unprecedented* decision, a cabal of Democrat judges are barring Trump from the ballot in Colorado,” Ramaswamy stated. “Having tried every trick in the book to eliminate President Trump from running in this election, the bipartisan Establishment is now deploying a new tactic to bar him from ever holding office again: the 14th Amendment.”
In a 4-3 decision announced Tuesday night, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualified Trump from running again for public office. According to The Associated Press, Tuesday’s ruling was the first time a presidential candidate had been disqualified on the basis of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
Ramaswamy argued that Tuesday’s ruling is simply the “latest election interference tactic” that is meant to “silence political opponents” and influence the election for “whatever puppet the Democrats put up this time.” The 2024 Republican presidential candidate claimed that the ruling deprives Americans of the “right to vote for their candidate of choice.”
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“The Framers of the 14th Amendment would be appalled to see this narrow provision—intended to bar former U.S. officials who switched to the Confederacy from seeking public office—being weaponized by a sitting President and his political allies to prevent a former President from seeking reelection,” Ramaswamy added. “Our country is becoming unrecognizable to our Founding Fathers.”
While Ramaswamy pledged to withdraw his name from the ballot in Colorado’s GOP primary if Trump’s name is not restored to the ballot, the other Republican presidential candidates did not share the same response; however, each of the candidates also expressed their disagreement with the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision.
Speaking at a campaign event Tuesday night, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said, “I do not believe Donald Trump should be prevented from being president of the United States by any court. I think he should be prevented from being president of the United States by the voters of this country. That’s what I think, and I don’t believe that it’s good for our country if he’s precluded from the ballot by a court.”
Former South Carolina Governor and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley made a similar statement, suggesting, “We don’t need to have judges making these decisions, we need voters to make these decisions.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, while not mentioning Trump directly, warned, “The Left invokes ‘democracy’ to justify its use of power, even if it means abusing judicial power to remove a candidate from the ballot based on spurious legal grounds. SCOTUS should reverse.”
