New York, 6 January 2024 (tca/dpa) – The US Supreme Court on Friday agreed to review a Colorado court's decision to bar Donald Trump from the state's presidential primary ballot, a mammoth case that is expected to determine the former president's eligibility status across the nation.

In an order, the nation's top court set oral arguments in the case for February 8. The case may be among the Supreme Court's most closely watched in history, and could thrust it into political territory it has not touched since Bush v. Gore after the 2000 presidential election.

At the same time, it is not clear how seriously the conservative Supreme Court would consider issuing a ruling that might bar the prohibitive front-runner in the Republican primary race. Some legal experts have expressed doubt the court would issue such a ruling.

Last month, Colorado's Supreme Court voted 4 to 3 to remove Trump from the state's ballot, finding that his role in the January 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol amounted to engagement in "insurrection" that prevents him from holding the office of president again.

Colorado's Supreme Court was the first court of its kind to accept the argument that Trump's relationship with January 6 runs afoul of a constitutional provision barring people from holding office if they violate an oath to the Constitution by engaging in insurrection.

Since the decision, different elections officials and courts have split on the question of Trump's eligibility. The Michigan Supreme Court and the California secretary of state rejected efforts to disqualify Trump from the states' 2024 presidential ballots.

Maine's secretary of state went the other way, barring Trump from the New England state's ballot.

At the nine-member US Supreme Court, Trump will find some familiar faces: He nominated three of the court's six conservatives. Still, the court roundly rejected his attempts to use it to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to President Biden.

Absent a Supreme Court ruling barring Trump from the ballot or allowing states to remove him, the 77-year-old Republican appears to be hurtling toward a 2024 rematch with Biden.