Minnesota official predicts Trump will either be on ballot ‘everywhere or nowhere’

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon argued Saturday that the Supreme Court will “have to” take up the expected appeal of the Colorado high court’s decision to disqualify former President Trump from the state’s primary ballot this week.

Colorado is the first state to rule that Trump should not be on its primary ballot, arguing he is responsible for the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, and therefore in violation of the 14th Amendment.

“We’re never going to have a situation in this country where one or some cluster of states decides that Donald Trump is not on the ballot and everyone else decides he is,” Simon said in an MSNBC interview. “He will either be on the ballot everywhere or nowhere, and the U.S. Supreme Court is going to make sure of that.”

Simon noted, however, that it is possible that the Supreme Court would not ultimately decide on the issue when it sees the case. There is a chance that the court could return the case to Colorado for further argumentation or make a narrow ruling, which does not determine the Jan. 6 claims.

“There’s so many different ways that the Supreme Court could go, there are multiple off ramps for them, for example, to decide the case without deciding the ultimate issue, which is, did Donald Trump engage in or help an insurrection?” Simon said. “They don’t have to decide that. There are a number of ways they can dispose of the case and get an outcome without deciding that question.”

The Colorado case throws the 2024 election into question, as a Supreme Court ruling upholding the determination could see Trump off the ballot nationally. The former president has downplayed those concerns, calling the moves against him purely political.

Other GOP primary candidates have also come to his defense, while Democrats overwhelmingly welcomed the decision.

In the short term, Simon called the implications “administratively crazy.” With the Colorado ruling on pause pending a Supreme Court intervention, Simon said that it is still unclear what the state’s primary ballot will look like, plus concerns over how the decision could impact a general election.

“There’s that extra angst and anxiety trying to figure out just logistically, just administratively how this is going to work if and when this spills over into a general election,” he said. “Administratively, it’s a headache, to put it mildly.”

Over a dozen states have considered or are considering similar challenges to Trump’s ballot qualifications. Minnesota dismissed a similar claim on procedural grounds, saying the case should be brought only if Trump is made the GOP nominee.

He called the Colorado case a “canary in the coal mine,” adding that courts and potential litigants around the country are in “wait and see mode” over how the Supreme Court will respond.