AUGUSTA, Maine — Attorneys for former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign appeared Friday before Maine’s top elections official to push back against three challenges seeking to remove him from the state’s primary ballot.
Trump campaign attorney Scott Gessler told Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat who presided over Friday’s hearing at the State House, that no election official nor court in the U.S. has decided to bar Trump from the ballot.
“And there’s a good reason for all of that,” Gessler, a former Colorado secretary of state, said, noting “substantial federal jurisdictional issues that prohibit states from engaging in this type of behavior.”
The challenges came from Portland attorney Paul Gordon, Winterport resident Mary Anne Royal and attorneys Benjamin Gaines and Jamie Kilbreth, who are representing a bipartisan trio: ex-state Sens. Kim Rosen, R-Bucksport, and Tom Saviello, a former Republican-turned-independent, along with former Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling, a Democrat.
