Trump ballot challenges advance, varying widely in strategy and sophistication

Swipe left for more photos

People shelter in the House gallery as rioters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally, Friday, July 7, 2023, in Council Bluffs, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Subscribe Now Choose a package that suits your preferences.
Start Free Account Get access to 7 premium stories every month for FREE!
Already a Subscriber? Current print subscriber? Activate your complimentary Digital account.

CONCORD, N.H. — John Anthony Castro, a 40-year-old Texan, long-shot Republican presidential candidate and the most prolific challenger of Donald Trump’s eligibility to be president, has gone to court in at least 27 states trying to remove the former president from the ballot.

On Wednesday, Castro found himself in a mostly empty courthouse in New Hampshire’s capital, where he was making a second attempt to advance his arguments; his initial case was dismissed last fall.

None of Castro’s lawsuits have succeeded. But the New Hampshire case is part of a growing constellation of ballot challenges — some lodged by established groups with national reach, many others far more homemade — that have been playing out in more than 30 states. Challengers in Colorado and Maine have succeeded, at least temporarily, in getting Trump disqualified, while other lawsuits have stalled or been dismissed. In at least 21 states, cases have yet to be resolved.

All the litigation has made for an odd, diffuse process in which some of the weightiest issues of American democracy are being raised not primarily by elected officials or a political party, but by an unlikely assortment of obscure figures, everyday citizens and nonprofit groups. Even some of the players are wondering what they are doing there.

“How did we get to this point where you have random brewers in Wisconsin throwing Hail Marys to try to get Trump off the ballot?” said Kirk Bangstad, a brewing company owner and liberal activist who filed an unsuccessful challenge to Trump’s eligibility with the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Bangstad, who is now considering a lawsuit, readily admits that he wishes someone more prominent would have taken up the cause.

Though the ballot challenges vary in format, venue and sophistication, they share a focus on whether Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat make him ineligible to hold the presidency again. The cases are based on a largely untested clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which was enacted after the Civil War. The clause bars federal or state officials who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.

Some lawyers have argued since 2021 that the clause could preclude Trump from appearing on a presidential ballot, and lawsuits invoking that theory were filed in several states in 2023. But it was not until last month, when the Colorado Supreme Court found Trump ineligible for that state’s primary ballot because of the 14th Amendment, that the question vaulted to the center of American politics. When Maine’s Democratic secretary of state announced last week that she, too, was disqualifying Trump, it only intensified the spotlight on the issue.

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, described the lawsuits in a statement last week as “bad-faith, politically motivated attempts to steal the 2024 election,” claiming that Democrats had “launched a multi-front lawfare campaign to disenfranchise tens of millions of American voters and interfere in the election.” Cheung did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

Trump filed a lawsuit in state court in Maine on Tuesday seeking to overturn the secretary of state’s decision, and on Wednesday he asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Colorado ruling.

The issue could not be more urgent: Republican presidential primary elections and caucuses begin this month, and polls have shown Trump with a commanding lead over his opponents.

In the meantime, other cases continue to wind their way through state and federal court systems.

Those lawsuits can generally be divided into three categories: Castro’s lawsuits, almost all of which have been filed in federal court; state challenges filed by two nonprofit organizations; and one-off cases brought in state or federal courts by local residents. In a handful of places — most notably Maine, but also Illinois, North Carolina and Wisconsin — voters have challenged Trump’s eligibility directly with a secretary of state or an election commission rather than in court. In California and New York, some elected officials have written letters pushing for election officers in those states to disqualify or consider disqualifying the former president.

Most establishment Democrats have not publicly embraced the cause. President Joe Biden said after the Colorado Supreme Court ruling that it was “self-evident” that Trump had supported an insurrection, but that it was up to the judiciary to determine his eligibility for the ballot. Several Democratic secretaries of state, who in much of the country are their states’ chief election officers, have included Trump on candidate lists and deferred to the courts on the question of his eligibility.

The two national groups, Free Speech for People — which filed lawsuits in Michigan, Minnesota and Oregon and an objection with the state Board of Elections in Illinois, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, known as CREW, which brought the Colorado case — have focused on state court systems. The Michigan and Minnesota Supreme Courts declined to take Trump off the primary ballot in those states. The Oregon lawsuit and the Illinois objection, which was filed on Thursday, are still pending.

Ben Clements, chair of Free Speech for People, said he believed challenges originating in federal court “are not helpful” to the disqualification cause because of concerns about plaintiffs not having the legal standing to bring a case. But he said the array of lawsuits in state courts — such challenges were pending this week in California, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oregon, Wisconsin and Wyoming — were welcome.

“Even if we wanted to, and even if CREW had taken an approach of filing multiple suits, we’re not going to hit all 50 states,” Clements said.

Many people expect the U.S. Supreme Court to ultimately decide the question of Trump’s eligibility. And outside of a few states, the challenges have not gained traction.

By far, the most persistent litigant is Castro, who, according to his campaign website, first ran for a county office at the age of 19 and has since run unsuccessfully at least twice for other offices, including in a special congressional election in 2021.

Castro received a law degree from the University of New Mexico and a master’s degree from Georgetown’s law school. He said he had never been licensed as a lawyer by any state, but was certified by the IRS to work on federal tax cases. Over the years, he has been involved in a dizzying array of legal disputes.

Castro said he had hoped that someone better known would mount a Republican presidential campaign to challenge Trump’s ballot qualifications, but when no one else stepped up, he decided to do it himself.

“My biggest fear was having the knowledge how to stop Trump and having to tell my grandchildren that I did nothing,” he said.

If Castro’s goal is to disqualify Trump, some observers have suggested that his strategy may backfire.

Derek Muller, an election law expert and professor at Notre Dame’s law school, said Castro risked creating unfavorable precedent with his failed lawsuits. Trump has already been able to use a judge’s opinion in one state — in which the judge dismissed a Castro lawsuit — to bolster his arguments in another.

Castro is “single-handedly building up precedent for Trump, inadvertently,” said Muller, who has filed briefs in two state court cases analyzing the relevant election law.

Castro disagreed. If anything, he said, his suits have forced Trump’s lawyers to “show their cards,” helping other challengers to hone their arguments. He said he plans to refile lawsuits in three more states this month.

© 2024 The New York Times Company