GOP Pros: Trump's Third-Party Threat Probably Empty
Donald Trump has made a big show of threatening to run for president as an independent if his Republican campaign comes up short. But, at least for now, Republicans appear not to be taking his threat at face value.
Instead, there is an emerging movement among Republicans to call Trump’s bluff and, in the process, wrest back some of his power over the GOP.
Trump’s third-party threat took center stage last week in the first Republican debate when Fox News moderator Bret Baier opened by asking whether any candidate would not pledge to run only under the GOP banner. Trump was the sole candidate to raise his hand.
“If I'm the nominee, I will pledge I will not run as an independent. But, and I am discussing it with everybody, I’m talking about a lot of leverage,” Trump said in explanation. “We want to win, and we will win. But I want to win as the Republican. I want to run as the Republican nominee.”
Although Trump had made similar remarks prior to the debate, the high-stakes setting seemed to elevate and amplify his threat. Trump was holding the Republican Party hostage, wielding his “leverage,” in front of an estimated 24 million viewers.
But addressing this issue, like a game of 3-D chess, presents the GOP with a complicated calculation. The party must weigh the magnitude of the threat Trump poses to the GOP’s image, estimate how long his campaign will last, and evaluate whether he would actually run as an independent to exact revenge on the GOP.
Having considered these factors, Republicans appear widely to have decided it best to not take Trump’s threat seriously. Underpinning this conclusion is a sense among Republicans that Trump, while certainly wealthy enough to fund a third-party bid, would not ultimately have the stomach for such a herculean undertaking. Even if ballot access and funding were not at issue, the campaign would almost surely be a losing one.
“I don't think he wants to spend half a billion dollars or more nor deal with the logistics to run a serious outsider independent campaign,” said one strategist for a competing Republican campaign. “So the only reason he is contemplating it is either (as an) empty threat, or he is a stalking horse for Hillary.”
Republican donor Fred Malek echoed to the Associated Press recently, “He's a businessman who will look at his potential for winning and decide it will be a poor return on his investment.”
Assuming that Trump would not follow through with plans to run a third-party campaign comes with profound risk for Republicans. Were Trump to run as an independent, his candidacy would almost certainly have a Ross Perot effect: taking votes away from the Republican nominee and helping lift the Democratic candidate to victory.
Trump understands this dynamic, as he has expressed publicly.
"Having a two-party race gives us a much better chance of beating Hillary and bringing our country back than having a third-party candidate," Trump told Washington Examiner’s Byron York last month.
Trump added: “I think every single vote that went to Ross Perot came from (George H.W.) Bush, from the Bush camp. And I think frankly, that it was amazing to me that they didn't convince Ross Perot not to run.”
At the same time, Trump has taken great pains to insist that he will not rule out a third-party campaign, suggesting that such a pledge would forfeit any leverage he has to keep the Republican Party from stepping in to end his bid.
Trump told CNN on Tuesday that running as an independent is "not something I want to do." But he also emphasized that he will not rule out that option, out of concern that the GOP might otherwise target him.
"I'm running as a Republican, I'm leading in every poll ... I'm leading all over the place and I want to run as a Republican," Trump said. "If I am treated fairly that's the way it's going to be, but I want to keep that door open. I have to keep that door open, because if something happens where I'm not treated fairly, I may very well use that door."
Among the questions facing Republicans is how best to diffuse this bomb without inadvertently strengthening Trump further. Indeed, any moves to sideline Trump or coax him into pledging support for the GOP could have that effect, making him appear even more the political outsider.
Some Republicans have floated the idea of excluding Trump from future debates if he does not pledge allegiance to the GOP. “I might like that, by the way,” Trump told ABC News when asked about that contingency. “People would be very incensed if that happened.”
Steven Lombardo, director of communications for Koch Industries, tweeted this week that the best way to handle Trump’s third-party threat is to “ignore it.”
“Don't placate, hammer him,” Lombardo tweeted. “A damaged Trump is far less likely to run as Indie.”
In the first debate, and since, Sen. Rand Paul has taken up this tack more stridently than other Republicans, attempting to highlight Trump’s past support for Democratic policies and Hillary Clinton. In a web video released Wednesday, Paul labeled Trump a “fake conservative.”
But Trump quickly dispatched with Paul during the debate, memorably telling him, “You’re having a tough time tonight.”
For other Republicans, even Trump’s Republican bid doesn’t seem real.
“I’m of the opinion that he won’t be on the ballot in Iowa and New Hampshire, that he won’t go all the way to the ballot,” said Stuart Stevens, a former senior adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “He doesn’t want to be the apprentice, he doesn’t want to be the one who’s judged by voters. In an election you get a grade.”
That might be wishful thinking for Republicans for now. But as many have begun to theorize, Trump's third-party threat is likely empty.
“Will he do it? I don’t think so. Could he do it? Yes,” said one Trump ally. “He is revenge-oriented, so he might do it.”
