Colorado voters share a sense of unease after the court disqualified Trump
Underlying the celebrations and condemnations of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision barring former President Donald J. Trump from Tuesday’s primary, there was a sense among the state’s voters that it was merely a prelude to the rancor to come .
Whether for or against the ruling, many voters said they felt uneasy about the prospect of months of election battles ricocheting between the courts and the campaign trail.
“I think it disenfranchises voters,” said Jeremy Loew, a longtime lawyer in Colorado Springs who described himself as a progressive who had never voted for Mr. Trump. “Our entire system is built around people running for office and letting the voters decide.”
“We can’t just kick people off the ballot because they’ve been accused of something,” he added.
In its 4-to-3 decision Tuesday, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Trump engaged in an insurrection leading up to the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and that he was ineligible to contest the Republican primary. to contest the state.
For some left-wing voters in the state, that outcome was welcome.
Richard McClain, a 37-year-old repair technician from Erie, Colorado, who voted for President Biden in 2020, said he thought Trump “deserved it.”
“He carried out an insurrection,” Mr. McClain said. “He clearly teased those people.”
Republicans in the state treated the decision with disdain, describing it as an undemocratic move by a court with a liberal majority.
“I’m shocked. I’m really shocked,” said Chen Koppelman, 72, a retired lawyer and teacher in Denver. “To decide that we don’t have the right to vote for whoever we want for president of the United States? Excuse me.”
Randy Loyd, the owner of an audio-video design company, called the decision “ridiculous.”
“Our country is a mess in so many ways,” he said at Denver’s Cherry Creek shopping center as Christmas carols played in the background. “The only hope we have is to bring Trump back in. It is a completely political move that the Colorado Supreme Court has done that.”
But the decision also exposed the deep divisions and unrest within the state’s Republican Party.
One of the petitioners in the case, a former Republican majority leader of the Colorado House and Senate, Norma Anderson, said in a statement Tuesday that she was “proud” of her participation in the case that disqualified Mr. Trump.
“My co-plaintiffs and I brought this case to continue to protect the right to free and fair elections enshrined in our Constitution and to ensure that Colorado’s Republican primaries only vote for eligible candidates,” she said . “Today’s victory does just that.”
Before the ruling, Dave Williams, chairman of a state Republican party that often seems at war with itself, had warned ominously that he would not be able to resolve differences at the ballot box. “It will happen in a civil war,” he said last month. “No one wants a civil war.”
On Tuesday, Mr Williams said he was confident the ruling would be overturned by the US Supreme Court.
Other voters said they were exhausted by partisan sniping and saw little to like from either camp.
As he waited for a table at a restaurant in Lafayette, Colorado, on a balmy evening, Tyler Chambers, 27, made it clear that even before Tuesday’s ruling, he was unimpressed by the current slate of candidates.
“There has to be a better candidate than Donald Trump or Joe Biden,” said Chambers, a wildland firefighter who lives in the nearby Denver suburb of Westminster.
The state Supreme Court’s decision was the first in the nation to rule that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — which disqualifies people who rebel against the Constitution after taking an oath to support it — applied on Mr. Trump. Democrats welcomed the idea that courts in other states would follow suit.
At the same time, there was a widespread feeling that Colorado would not have the final say on the issue.
Erin Trendler, a public school occupational therapist who lives in the Denver suburb of Louisville, said she supported Tuesday’s ruling “100 percent.” “Colorado has taken a stand,” she said. “I hope other states will follow suit.”
But she expected the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the decision.
And Tuesday’s decision appeared to do little to ease the stress and anxiety that many voters said they felt about the election, which is now less than a year away.
“I hope the country is strong enough to weather this crisis in our democracy,” said Arthur Greene (74).
Kathi Patrick, a 55-year-old construction operations manager from Broomfield, north of Denver, took a moment after dinner with friends to say Tuesday’s decision changed little for her.
“There’s so much anger in the country that we’re all dealing with right now, and this just perpetuates all that anger,” she said.
“No one will be happy.”
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs And Kelley Manley reporting contributed.