Jim Geraghty: Donald Trump: Could Third-Party Conservative Beat Him in November? – National Review
In such a scenario, the race would be decided in the House of Representatives, where each state delegation gets one vote and the majority choice wins. Right now, Republicans control 34 state delegations, Democrats control 14, and two are split evenly. The question is whether Republicans in the House vote would vote for Trump, the party’s official nominee, over an independent conservative candidate.
It would depend almost entirely on who that candidate was.
From: Donald Trump: Could Third-Party Conservative Beat Him in November?
That’s optimistic, innit? A split republican vote means a Democrat gets to 270 electoral votes. Pretty much guaranteed. My back-of-envelope calculations have the dems winning about 35 states, including Texas. That’s not ever going to make it to the House tiebreaker.Report
Nothing requires a candidate to appear on the ballot in a 50 states. Romney could only run in Utah Idaho and Wyoming, if he wins those states it it would be difficult for Trump to get 270 electors and there would be little risk of flipping those states even if the vote split.Report
Nohing increases turnout in swing states like the party saying “Don’t vote for our guy, we’re gonna try to beat him in Idaho with our REAL guy and take the election that way”.
You can put him on the ballot in just a few states, but you’re telling the party in a national election “We really want our own guy to lose in favor of our other guy”.
If I’m a Florida Republican I’m now looking at two basic interpretations. Voting Trump is so noxious that the party is trying to spike him with some fun shenanigans (undecided voters and non-Trump voters). The party is trying to STEAL my vote from Trump (Trump voters).
The latter might move me to the polls, or might make me stay home (Screw those guys! Trump will win! Or screw this, the system is rigged!). The former will keep me home — or at least not vote for Trump. Why am I gonna vote for a guy so bad his own party is trying to screw him?Report
That adds up to only 13 electoral votes. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the only elections close enough for that to matter were 2000 and 1916. (2004 was almost that close, but not quite.)Report
No way in hell does Mitt Romney or any other establishment candidate have a chance of winning any state without near-national ballot access.
Look. George Wallace tried to bring the race to the house tiebreaker in 68, and got reasonably close. But he did it with the votes of people who Genuinely supported Wallace and wanted him to be president. And those people were only to vote for him because he was campaigning to be POTUS. Someone who shows up on the ballot in only a few small deep-red states isn’t going to attract the attention of voters, even in those states.Report
Yeah this is rather optimistic. A third party run by a conservative against Donald Trump would give the Democratic Party a better advantage.
The more interesting thing here is the absolute inability for a conservative to state this.Report
States that would vote for a Republican would be split between Trump and the independent conservative, in purple states it might give the Democratic candidate enough votes to get the state electoral college votes, and Democratic states will remain Democratic. The hope in the above scenario seems to be that enough people won’t vote Democratic so the House of Representatives has to decide the election and they will elect the “independent” conservative, you will than rejoin the Republican Party.Report