Is Donald Trump secretly planning independent bid?
What if Donald Trump鈥檚 secret plan, already formulated, is to bolt the Republican Party and run an independent bid for the White House in 2016?
Jeb Bush indicated as , although to be fair, it鈥檚 not clear if Jeb! was serious or not.
The newest back-and-forth on this issue came Dec. 8 with the release of a new that indicated 68 percent of Trump鈥檚 supporters would follow him out of the party and vote for him if he went ahead with a third-party candidacy. Only 18 percent said they鈥檇 stick with Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, or George Pataki, or whoever wins the official GOP nod.
Trump, as is his wont, was gleeful about this latest statistical evidence of the hugeness of his impact on American politics. He tweeted the poll out and posted it on Facebook, perhaps as a warning to any GOP official thinking of bashing his proposal to bar US entry to non-citizen Muslims.
Enter Mr. Bush. He retweeted Trump鈥檚 post and added a comment.
鈥淢aybe Donald negotiated a deal with his buddy @HillaryClinton. Continuing this path will put her in the White House,鈥� Bush tweeted.
Look, we know Bush is not having a great week, what with the news that his super PAC has spent $50 million this year 鈥� almost half its initial cash haul 鈥� while his have slid into the single digits.
But implying a conspiracy between the front-running GOP candidate and the Democrat鈥檚 likely nominee? Just because the Clintons attended Trump鈥檚 2005 wedding, Bill Clinton called Trump for a private chat just weeks before Trump entered the race, and some of Trump鈥檚 nonimmigration positions are actually kind of liberal?
OK, it looks bad, but come on 鈥� Trump would have more direct ways of influencing the race if that鈥檚 all he wanted. Such as cash and/or his endorsement.
That said it still seems possible this does end up in a three-way general election. If Trump鈥檚 running for the attention, that鈥檚 a way to make sure the attention continues, even in the event of nominee Ted Cruz. If he鈥檚 running to push the US to the right on immigration, that is a method of keeping the issue at the forefront of news.
And in a nation closely divided between Republican and Democratic candidates, a Trump crashing the party could indeed make Bill Clinton first spouse.
鈥淚f all 68 percent of those 'Trump or bust' likely Republican voters are telling the truth about sticking with him if he runs third-party, we鈥檙e looking at something like 17-20 percent of the total vote next November going to Trump, way more than enough to wreck the GOP鈥檚 chances,鈥� writes the r today at Hot Air.
Except that the chances are Trump really wouldn鈥檛 get that many votes. It鈥檚 hard and expensive to get on the ballot in all 50 states, and he might not make all the deadlines. Some states, such as Ohio and Michigan, have that might block Trump from getting on the ballot as anything but a Republican.
Third-party candidacies typically fade in the stretch 鈥� independent John Anderson went from 21 percent at the declaration of his candidacy in 1980 to 7 percent in the election. Ross Perot dropped from 24 percent to 19 percent in 1992.
And a Trump third-party candidacy might end up actually helping Republicans down-ballot. That鈥檚 Martin Longman鈥檚 theory at the of Washington Monthly, anyway.
Mr. Longman points out that many Trump voters are lower-income, less-educated whites who don鈥檛 often turn out to vote in high percentages. If Trump is running, either as the GOP nominee or an independent, they鈥檒l have more incentive to go the polls. The total number of right-leaning voters will go up.
鈥淎nd that ought to help down-ticket Republicans,鈥� writes Longman. 鈥淪o, what might doom their presidential candidate could well be what limits their losses in the congressional races.鈥�
