Trump rivals criticize Maine’s decision in defense
Former President Donald J. Trump’s rivals in the Republican race for president lined up again in his defense Thursday after Maine barred him from its primaries, the second state to do so.
When the Colorado Supreme Court excluded Mr. Trump from the primary vote there last week, all of Mr. Trump’s opponents also criticized the decision, rather than using it as an opportunity to attack.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur, made much the same arguments Thursday evening.
“It opens Pandora’s box,” Mr. DeSantis said on Fox News after the Maine decision was announced. “Can you have a Republican Secretary of State disqualify Biden from the vote?”
DeSantis had previously suggested that the Colorado ruling was part of a plot to shore up Republican support behind Trump in the primaries. He had also said that Mr Trump’s criminal charges had “sucked all the oxygen out of the race”.
Mr. Ramaswamy, the candidate who is ostensibly running against Mr. Trump but has most enthusiastically defended the former president, again said he would withdraw from the primaries in every state where Mr. Trump was not on the ballot. He also called on the Republican party — Mr. DeSantis, former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey — to make a similar pledge.
“This is what a real threat to democracy looks like,” Mr. Ramaswamy said in a statement. “The system is determined to take this man out, the constitution be damned.”
A statement from the Haley campaign said that “Nikki will beat Trump fair and square. It should be up to the voters to decide who gets elected.”
A spokesman for Mr. Christie’s campaign pointed to his previous criticism of the Colorado ruling. Mr. Christie said at the time that a court should not exclude a candidate from the ballot without a process that “includes evidence accepted by a jury.” He has also said that Trump must be defeated at the ballot box.
Other Republicans quickly acted Thursday to express their outrage. Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the fourth-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, called Trump’s removal from the Maine ballot “election interference, voter suppression and a blatant attack on democracy.”
The response from Maine’s congressional delegation was mixed. Sen. Susan Collins, the lone Republican, said the decision, which she said would “deprive thousands of Mainers of the opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice,” should be overturned. Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Representative Jared Golden, a Maine Democrat likely to face a close re-election bid, said he disagreed with the decision, arguing that Mr. Trump had not been found guilty of the crime of insurrection and therefore on the ballot had to stay. Mr. Golden’s seat is rated as a flop in an analysis by The Cook Political Report.
“I voted to impeach Donald Trump for his role in the January 6 insurrection. I do not believe he should be reelected as President of the United States,” Mr. Golden said in a statement. “However, we are a nation of laws, so until he is actually found guilty of the crime of insurrection, he should be allowed on the ballot.”
Rep. Chellie Pingree, who sits in a safely Democratic seat in Maine’s other congressional district, said she supported the state’s decision.
“The text of the 14th Amendment is clear. No one who has engaged in an insurrection against the government can ever hold elected office again,” Ms. Pingree said in a statement, adding that “our Constitution is the foundation of America and our laws and it appears that Trump’s actions prohibited by the Constitution.”