re: #70 MsJ

It’s not really surprising, and really basic math. According to recent polls, there’s 30% who are for sure voting for Trump. There’s 57% saying they won’t vote for Trump, and another 13% that are unsure.

In order to win as a third party/independent candidate, he’ll have to get votes among the 70% in the not-Trump camps.

Let’s say that 13% breaks fairly evenly. In a two person race, that makes it Not Trump 63%, Trump 36%. That’s 1964, 1972, 1984 style 49-50 state landslide territory.

In a three way race, let’s say that 13% splits evenly, you’re looking at Trump being somewhere around 34%. That leaves the Democratic nominee and an independent 66% of the vote to split, and that’s where the real scary scenarios come in. If the Democratic nominee isn’t “good” and the independent is “good”, you’re looking at a 34-33-33 sort of race. How those numbers split on a state by state level is a game of roulette, and it’s entirely possible nobody gets to 270.

This isn’t 1992 where Perot pulled pretty evenly between the two major parties. Trump’s floor is clearly in the 30-35% range. His ceiling is probably not much better than about 45%. So, if you’re sure that you aren’t going to be able to pull votes from Trump, who is basically at his floor; you’re only option in a three way race is to pull from the Democratic nominee.

And this all begs the question: why make your road harder as an independent/third party candidate? If you run in and win the Democratic primary, you’ll have the institutional support of the Democratic Party. You won’t have to worry about ballot access, or splitting votes in a way that results in Trump winning the electoral college or House vote with a third of the popular vote (because there will only be two major candidates running).