Third-party option is an uphill challenge
WASHINGTON — Efforts by disgruntled Republicans to launch a third-party challenge to presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump are likely to fail, the victim of a waning clock and the herculean effort it takes to get a third-party candidate on the ballot.
Despite the long odds, Republicans who feel that the unconventional and unpredictable Trump isn’t a true conservative have ramped up discussions on trying to defeat him and Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton in November with an alternative candidate who hews closely to their political beliefs.
“Why are we confined to these two terrible options?” Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., wrote Wednesday in a lengthy Facebook post critical of Trump and Clinton.
“Why shouldn’t America draft an honest leader who will focus on 70 percent solutions for the next four years? You know — an adult.” Late in the game
Republican anti-Trump forces are hunting for a willing candidate, seeking out potential donors, and mapping out legal strategies to navigate the myriad of often-stringent state rules and regulations to get a third-party candidate on the ballot around the country.
“It’s basically really, really late in the game to get onto the ballot,” said Elaine Kamarck, founding director of the Center for Effective Management at the Brookings Institution.
“Almost all of these states have signature requirements. Even if you hire professional, door-to-door types, you can’t do this quickly. Imagine organizing 80,000 signatures. And they have to be real, living, registered voters.”
Still, names of potential thirdparty candidates have been bandied about: Sasse, former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; retired U.S. Marine Corps General James Mattis; and Republican Govs. Susana Martinez of New Mexico, Brian Sandoval of Nevada, and Nikki Haley of South Carolina.
So far, no one is jumping at the chance to jump into the race.
That’s probably because no independent candidate has ever won the presidency, and some have gone down in history as spoilers. ‘Rather fund a third party’
Texas tycoon H. Ross Perot got 19 percent of the vote in his 1992 independent bid, which many say took votes away from incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush and helped elect Democrat Bill Clinton.
Some Democrats blame consumer advocate Ralph Nader’s independent run in 2000 for Vice President Al Gore’s narrow loss to George W. Bush.
“It’s an uphill climb — everybody recognizes that, regardless of the route we go — but there are a lot of Republican donors sitting on the sidelines who would rather fund a third party than fund Donald Trump,” Erick Erickson, a conservative talk radio host and writer who’s leading third-party conversations, told The Hill newspaper.
Trump and Republican National Committee officials dismiss the third-party quest as Washington cocktail conversation, a political pipe dream from party members who are unhappy now but will eventually return to the tent rather than face the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency.