(BBC News) Michigan’s Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal by voters in the U.S. state to disqualify Donald Trump from next year’s presidential primary.
They sought to invoke a clause in the U.S. Constitution, barring anyone who has engaged in insurrection, over Trump’s role in the 2021 Capitol riots.
The decision comes days after Colorado became the first state to rule that Trump was not an eligible candidate.
Michigan is considered a battleground state in the 2024 general election.
Traditionally voting Democrat, Michigan narrowly supported Trump, a Republican, in his successful 2016 presidential campaign. But the state reverted to the Democrats when Joe Biden carried it by a margin of nearly 3% in 2020.
Unlike in Colorado, the Michigan bid failed early on in the process, and the appeal to the state’s supreme court was seen as having little chance of success.
Trump praised the decision on Truth Social on Wednesday, calling it a “pathetic gambit to rig the Election”. The ruling means that his name will appear on the ballot for the Republican primary, set to be held on February 27.
Pro-democracy advocacy group Free Speech for People filed the lawsuit in September, and the group said in a statement that the ruling was a narrow and technical one that applied only to the state’s Republican primary.
“However, the Michigan Supreme Court did not rule out that the question of Donald Trump’s disqualification for engaging in insurrection against the U.S. Constitution may be resolved at a later stage,” said Ron Fein, Free Speech For People’s legal director.
Lower courts in Michigan rejected the case on procedural grounds and did not examine the question of whether the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, qualified as an insurrection under the law and whether Trump played a part in it.