Some senior Republicans are worried by Donald Trump. There’s nothing new in that. But a few are so deeply concerned that they are casting around hoping to find a third party candidate to run against him. Commentators Bill Kristol and Eric Erikson are said to have coordinated efforts with former Republican nominee Mitt Romney to find a possible fit for the role.
Michael Bloomberg, the mega-rich former mayor of New York, apparently spent a lot of time and money looking at launching his own third party bid. He had name recognition, a basic political operation, and could throw a considerable amount of his millions at a campaign. But while believing he could win a few states, he realised he couldn’t win the presidency. Romney has ruled himself out of a fresh run. although he has been scathing of Trump and believes the American public are also feeling some buyers’ remorse at having pushed him aside four years ago. Ohio governor John Kasich was also apparently considered – but he too said no. He signed a pledge at the start of the campaign to support the Republican nominee. And while he hasn’t leapt to endorse Trump, he’s not keen to go against his own party.
And then there is Nebraska senator Ben Sasse. He’s been vocal about the choice America is likely to face between Trump and Hillary Clinton. But the senator, who might struggle to get picked out of a line-up in his home state, still has ambition in his own party and a third party run would kill that stone dead.
The #neverTrump campaign are running out of time and possible bodies. The filing deadline for the presidential election has passed in Texas and that’s a big state to miss. And others are rapidly coming into view. The group want to present someone they see as a credible conservative alternative to Donald Trump. They don’t believe that he’s a true Republican, is ill-equipped to be commander-in-chief, and would encourage Republicans to stay away from the polls on election day. A depressed turnout would mean important House, Senate and gubernatorial races could be lost, stripping back some of the Republicans’ control in key areas.
Third party runs don’t work. Ross Perot pulled in nearly 20m votes in 1992. That’s 18.9% of the vote. Republicans believe that he took votes away from President George HW Bush and handed the White House to Bill Clinton. When he ran under the Reform Party banner four years later he lost 12m votes and virtually disappeared from politics. John Anderson ran in 1980 and despite missing key filing deadlines won enough court battles to be on the ballot in all 50 states. Not that it helped much. He polled nearly 6m votes, but Reagan won in a landslide.
In 1968 Alabama governor George Wallace ran for the newly formed American Independent Party. Running on a barely disguised racist platform, he won almost 10m votes, and crucially 46 electoral college votes, all in the deep south. Nixon won, but stole Wallace’s law and order platform – a coded reference to the race riots many blamed on black Americans – and turned it into his successful southern strategy in 1972.
It’s more than 100 years since there was a credible third party candidate. Teddy Roosevelt running as the Bull Moose party’s nominee in 1912 captured 27% of the vote taking second place and forcing the Republican candidate into third.
Many Republicans believe a third party run would simply hand the White House to Hillary Clinton, if, as expected, she secures the nomination. With Trump she has historically high disapproval ratings. America doesn’t really like either of them. But even that isn’t enough to convince someone that this might be a battle worth joining.
Alan Fisher is a senior Al Jazeera correspondent
By Alan Fisher | 18 May 2016