Many Republicans are hoping for a deadlocked convention in which no candidate gets the majority of votes. And if that doesn’t work, say some, maybe we could have a deadlocked electoral college.
If Donald Trump has the nomination “stolen” from him, to his mind, he may run as a third party candidate. Or if he gets the nomination, surely other third part candidates will emerge, whether Republicans (who would have a challenge to get on state ballots) or candidates from parties such as the Libertarians or the Constitution Party that are already on the ballot in many states.
A credible third party candidate could prevent either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump from winning a majority of electoral votes. Which means that the vote would then go to the House of Representatives. Which is controlled by Republicans, who could choose anyone they wanted.
UPDATE: Thanks to Todd for quoting to me the 12th Amendment, which requires the House of Representatives, in the event that no one wins an electoral majority, to choose from the top three candidates. So theoretically, a third party candidate could be chosen in the House. The Republican majority would have to go against its own party’s candidate, which could possibly happen. But there is not much hope for this option.From Bridget Johnson, Ahead of Convention, Libertarians Dangle ‘Tax-and-Spending-Cutter’s Dream’ Nominee | PJ Media:
From Greg Carey, How a Third-Party Candidate Could Cause an Electoral Crisis:
Imagine this scenario. As expected, Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, and Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination. However, disaffected Republicans run a third-party candidate. In the presidential election Clinton wins a plurality but not a majority of the popular vote. (A third-party candidate would likely hurt Trump more than Clinton.) Clinton likewise wins a plurality but not a majority of votes in the Electoral College. According to the Constitution, the House of Representatives then selects the president, with each state delegation possessing one vote. In this scenario the House of Representatives is the same heavily Republican body that now sits. The third party candidate, who finished second or even third in the popular vote, becomes president of the United States. Imagine the uproar, hopefully not a violent one, that would ensue such a subversion of the popular will.
Right now groups of Republicans are planning to bring about precisely this turn of events. Refusing to support Donald Trump, they want to make sure a Trump nomination does not destroy the Republican Party. Erick Erickson, founder of the conservative website “The Resurgent,” laid out a framework for such a plan in anNPR interview this week. A Trump nomination, Erickson reasons, would discourage many Republicans from voting, harming other GOP candidates all the way down the ballot. Not only would a third-party candidate bring out Republican voters, she or he just might win a controversial election.
Ordinarily third-party and independent candidates do not heavily disrupt presidential elections. They may influence the final outcome by pulling more votes from one candidate than from another. People still debate whether Ralph Nader’s 2000 candidacy pulled the election away from Al Gore to George W. Bush. Hanging chads aside, however, no third party candidate has turned the election over to the heavily partisan House of Representatives. That could happen this year.
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