[TNMOUTH]

Why on earth would Trump, the hero for many on here, HELP elect Hillary by running 3rd party and WHY, if Todd is to be believed, is he ALREADY working to get the nod as an independent?

[COBOL2Java]

Why on earth would Trump, the hero for many on here, HELP elect Hillary by running 3rd party and WHY, if Todd is to be believed, is he ALREADY working to get the nod as an independent?

[onona]

Here's my numbers:

If there were a Trump / Cruz ticket or vice versa as independents:

I 40% D 38% R 24%

[Jim Noble]

You obviously have the delusion that average Americans can be classified as “Republicans” or “Democrats”, when most normal people don’t give two sh*ts about either one.

Many voters who pull the lever for the D are acting out of perceived self-interest. There are ways to pull in a lot of these voters, at least white ones.

Trump has cross-party appeal that none of the others do.

[LS]

That is exactly the wrong question. The real question is, why are the Republicans soooooo worried about him getting the nomination? Is it that he just might actually represent some of the people out here?

It is true that the record for third parties in the US isn't great. The TR defection in 2012 elected Wilson. Most scholarly evidence, however, says that Perot did NOT "elect Clinton," and that he took votes equally. I think a case could be made that in his speeches and press, by attacking Bush more than Clinton, he disproportionately damaged Bush, but hard to tell.

On the other hand, essentially a 3d party won in 1860 when the newly founded Republicans, only four years old, defeated the Constitutional Union Party, the Democrats, and a third splinter. Even then, however, the anti-slave group was as divided as the pro-slave group, so it can be argued that the 3d party GOP won the election flat out.

[skippyjonjones]

Here’s a better question. why do you believe Chuck Todd?

[RFEngineer]

“Why on earth would Trump, the hero for many on here, HELP elect Hillary”

One would be asking a less whiny question by asking “Why would Republicans nominate a candidate that can’t get a majority of the vote, because they are yet another big-government, statist putz?”

[RKBA Democrat]

“Why on earth would Trump, the hero for many on here, HELP elect Hillary by running 3rd party and WHY, if Todd is to be believed, is he ALREADY working to get the nod as an independent.”

More to the point, why would someone who is winning in the polls and has a fair chance of getting the nomination bother with Second party run?

Answer: he wouldn’t. If he is looking into it, it’s with the idea of keeping the gop leadership on a short leash.