Can Trump run for president if convicted?
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Donald Trump can still run for president in 2024 if he is convicted of a crime. The 77-year-old is in the Manhattan courthouse on Monday as jury selection begins at the start of the first criminal trial against the former president. Trump is charged with falsifying business documents related to the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their affair prior to the 2016 election.
Trump has been charged with dozens of crimes since last year, including in the New York case, an election tampering case in Georgia and two federal cases — one for trying to overturn the 2020 election and one for handling classified documents after his first White House term . At the rate some of the cases are moving, Trump could be convicted of a crime before the 2024 presidential election.
With nearly 100 charges against the former president, critics and supporters alike have raised questions about whether Trump could still continue to pursue America’s highest office with a felony conviction under his belt. The short answer: Yes.
The constitution sets small qualification requirements for who can run for president of the United States. Those seeking the office must be 35 years old, a “natural born” citizen of the United States and have lived in the country for at least 14 years. However, there are no restrictions on whether a person running for president has a criminal record.
Some states prohibit felons from running for state and local elections — but those laws don’t apply at the federal level to statewide offices. Trump remains very popular with his base and is the de facto Republican nominee after sweeping the most GOP primaries so far.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this summer will officially crown him as the party’s nominee for the third consecutive election cycle. Some states are trying to override Trump’s ability to remain on the ballot in 2024.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump could not appear on the state’s presidential ballot under a provision in Section 3 of Amendment 14 that says those who ‘engage in rebellion or sedition’ after taking an oath to the Constitution cannot run for office.
But the 6-3 conservative Supreme Court rejected the Colorado decision, arguing that states cannot decide which candidates can and cannot appear on the ballot for federal elections under this constitutional amendment. Several lawsuits argue that Trump’s actions before and on January 6, 2021 meet the bar for disqualification from office in the clause — but the 14th Amendment does not specifically refer to the presidency, and the former president has yet to be convicted of sedition at the federal level.
The last candidate to run from a prison cell was Eugene Debs – more than 100 years ago. But the socialist had no real chance of becoming president despite running five times throughout the early 1900s and the last time while serving a six-month prison term. Trump is the first candidate in American history who has a real chance of winning the presidency with a felony conviction, should at least one of the cases against him prove successful.
