Story
Trump drags his ballot disaster to the Supreme Court
Trump asked the Supreme Court to reverse Colorado’s ruling that he is constitutionally ineligible to run, turning the 2024 race into a direct fight over the Jan. 6 insurrection clause.
Edition · January 3, 2024
Trump’s ballot fight hits the Supreme Court
On January 3, 2024, the former president turned a state-level disqualification mess into a national constitutional brawl — and he was already losing the optics war.
January 3 was a brutal day for Trump-world on the ballot front. Trump asked the Supreme Court to rescue him from Colorado’s unprecedented ruling that he was ineligible under the 14th Amendment, while his allies in Maine were forced into a defensive, low-odds campaign to punish the official who knocked him off that state’s ballot. The legal merits were always disputed, but the political damage was obvious: the man leading the GOP race was spending the first week of the year arguing not about governing but about whether the Constitution disqualifies him from the ballot at all.
Closing take
The immediate legal outcome was uncertain, but the political shape of the day was not. Trump spent January 3 trying to turn disqualification into martyrdom; instead, the headlines made him look like a candidate whose Jan. 6 baggage was still heavy enough to drag him into court. That is not a good way to start the year when your whole brand is inevitability.
Ranked by how bad the fuckup was
5 stars means maximum fallout. 1 star means a smaller self-own.
Story
Maine Republicans launch a revenge campaign they probably can’t win
After Maine’s secretary of state removed Trump from the ballot, Republicans rushed to punish her — a loud move that looked more like grievance theater than strategy.