office seeker

From the start of the election interference case, federal prosecutors — led by the special counsel Jack Smith — have argued that Trump was acting not in his public role as an officeholder, but rather in his private role as an office seeker, when he undertook an array of schemes to illegally stay in power.

Once someone establishes a “reasonable suspicion or belief” that a candidate is not qualified, the burden shifts to the office seeker to prove otherwise.

Mr. Trump’s favored candidate for governor, Kari Lake, is a first-time office seeker who has threatened to jail the state’s top elections official.

As the New York Times reported, "Mr. Trump's favored candidate for governor, Kari Lake, is a first-time office seeker who has threatened to jail the state's top elections official. His chosen candidate to replace that elections official, a Democrat, is a state legislator named Mark Finchem, who was with a group of demonstrators outside the Capitol on January 6 as rioters tried to stop the certification of the 2020 election."

Mr. Clark became an office seeker in 1974, when, as a Democrat, he tried to unseat Senator Jacob K. Javits of New York, a Republican.