So, you don’t really have an answer to the question, and instead I find an advertisement to show the positive lights of a gun-grabbing, cross-dressing, open-borders abortionist liberal.
My answer to the question is that it’s about a 30% likelihood that a 3rd party would form. Rudy is looking at about 30-60% of the socon base either actively going against him or sitting this one out. That would put about a 90% likelihood of him losing to Hillary. Not only would he lose against Hillary, but he brings in a 30% risk of ushering in the end of the republican party.
I would like to see such a contract at Intrade so that we can deal with some kind of data rather than pure conjecture.
To quote myself ...
“As to whether these will be sufficient for Brother Dobson, I think they will be. I think the challenge on the right, will be from the social conservatives, not the religious right, and will be animated more by Rudy’s embrace of comprehensive immigration reform than by the moral issues.”
The second sentence lines up with what you said.
As to what impact a third-party social conservative would have, one could say that depends on so many factors. Is the candidate a prominent person, enormously wealthy, etc.? Thusfar, I have not heard of any credible name. This correlates with your figures of “30 percent,” that is, you don’t see it as very likely.
In 2000, Ralph Nader clearly cost Al Gore the election, taking more votes from the left-of-center candidate than Andre Marrou and Pat Buchanan together took from the right-of-center candidate. So, it is possible that, in a close election, a minor candidate can be decisive.
In my opinion, the odds are that, the Green Party candidate will undercut Hillary Clinton more than the Constitution Party and Libertarian Party candidates will undercut whoever is the GOP candidate. This is because something like half of the Democratic Party believes in conspiracy theories of 9-11 (along with UFOs, channeling, global warming, and who knows what else).