Politics
WATCH: DeSantis Says He Won’t Follow Ramaswamy’s Lead To Withdraw From Colorado Ballot
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has declared that he will not follow the lead of fellow GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in withdrawing from the Colorado ballot. This comes in response to Ramaswamy’s announcement that he will remove himself from the Colorado primary unless former President Donald Trump’s eligibility is restored.
Ramaswamy, a businessman and rising figure in the Republican primary, expressed his intention to boycott the Colorado GOP primary on Tuesday. Governor DeSantis, however, has a different viewpoint. “No, I think that’s just playing into the left,” DeSantis said to Newsmax.
“I think the case will get overturned by the Supreme Court, but I’ve qualified for all the ballots. I’m competing in all the states and I’m going to accumulate the delegates necessary.”
WATCH:
“That’s the whole name of the game in this situation. But I do anticipate that that decision was political and will get reversed,” the Florida Governor finished.
Following Tuesday’s ruling, Ramaswamy criticized the decision as an attack on American democracy and called it an “actual” attack on democracy, describing it as un-American, unconstitutional, and unprecedented.
He urged other Republican candidates, including Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley, to join him in boycotting the Colorado primary, framing participation as an endorsement of what he perceives as an illegal maneuver.
The stance taken by DeSantis shows the differing strategies within the split Republican Party regarding the 2024 presidential race. All candidates trail behind Trump significantly. According to FiveThirthyEight, current GOP numbers sit at:
- Trump 62.0%
- DeSantis 11.9%
- Haley 10.9%
- Ramaswamy 4.4%
Despite the former president not being charged with his January 6 indictment and having no convictions, the ruling still stands. Trump plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The court’s decision, based on the 14th Amendment, prohibits “former officers” of the United States who have engaged in “rebellion” or “insurrection” from holding office. This has been deemed political and unprecedented by critics.
“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,” Ramaswamy wrote on X. Though he is running against Trump in the Republican primary, Ramaswamy has frequently condemned leftist law-fare. After Trump was indicted for the second time on charges of mishandling classified documents, Ramaswamy traveled to the courthouse in Florida and vowed to pardon Trump if he was convicted.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung wrote on Tuesday, “Democrat Party leaders are in a state of paranoia over the growing, dominant lead President Trump has amassed in the polls. They have lost faith in the failed Biden presidency and are now doing everything they can to stop the American voters from throwing them out of office next November.”
Justice Carlos Samour, one of the dissenting justices, voiced his critique of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to ban Trump. Samour wrote after the ruling, “The decision to bar former President Donald J. Trump — by all accounts the current leading Republican presidential candidate (and reportedly the current leading overall presidential candidate) — from Colorado’s presidential primary ballot flies in the face of the due process doctrine.”
“This can’t possibly be the outcome the framers intended,”
