Trump's DC trial set for day before Super Tuesday
Former President Trump’s trial in Washington over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results is set to begin one day before Super Tuesday, when voters will head to the polls in more than a dozen states in the Republican presidential primary.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan set Trump’s D.C. trial for March 4 after special counsel Jack Smith’s team asked for a Jan. 2 trial date. Trump’s team suggested a trial date in April 2026.
Super Tuesday will take place March 5, when hundreds of delegates will be up for grabs in the Republican presidential nominating contest.
Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia will hold their primaries that day. American Samoa will hold its caucus, as well.
Trump is the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, leading his rivals in the primary by double-digit percentages in nearly every national poll of Republican primary voters.
But Trump is facing multiple court dates already next year, and the timing of the cases could mean Trump could be kept off the campaign trail for long stretches of time.
The D.C. trial is one of three that has been scheduled for 2024 during the primary process, and a fourth in Georgia has yet to be scheduled but may also fall during the campaign season.
Trump is scheduled to go on trial March 25 in Manhattan, N.Y., over an alleged hush money scheme to cover up an affair in the lead-up to the 2016 election. That trial date would fall two days after the Louisiana primary and one week before the April 2 primaries in Delaware, New York, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.
Trump’s trial in Florida over his retention of classified documents after leaving the White House is scheduled for May 20. While that date may get moved as Trump’s team fights for delays, the current date would see the trial begin one day before Kentucky and Oregon primaries hold their respective primaries. There would be just six more primaries on the calendar after that.
The former president has previously decried that his mounting legal woes could keep him off the campaign trail.
During a rally earlier this month in New Hampshire, Trump bemoaned that his legal cases would force him “to spend time and money away from the campaign trail.”
“I'm sorry, I won't be able to go to Iowa today, I won't be able to go to New Hampshire today, because I'm sitting in a courtroom on bullshit because his attorney general charged me with something,” Trump told the crowd. “Terrible.”