The #NeverTrump Movement May Have One Last Hail Mary Play, And It Might Just Work

Last night, Donald Trump won two more primaries–in Nebraska and West Virginia–as he continued his inexorable march to the GOP nomination. But despite that, all is not well among Republicans, and the nascent #NeverTrump movement believes they may have discovered the perfect way to derail the possibility of Trump ever reaching the Oval Office.

According to a report from Mother Jones, a third-party option is about be launched which will siphon votes away from Trump in an effort to guarantee he does not win against his Democratic competition in November. Mother Jones noted:

“Republican strategist Liz Mair, who has become one of the public faces of the anti-Trump crowd, tells Mother Jones that she’s been having conversations with other leading conservatives opposed to Trump about a variety of backup options since Trump’s last remaining rivals, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, dropped out of the race last week. One option, should they fail to recruit a viable candidate to run nationwide, is to get conservative candidates to run independent, single-state bids in as many states as possible.”


#NeverTrump even has a very specific strategy: They would run Mitt Romney in Utah. Scott Walker might be convinced to run in Wisconsin, along with Ted Cruz or Rick Perry in Texas and John Kasich in Ohio. Those states along might be enough to assure that Trump cannot get the 270 electoral votes he needs.

The article in Mother Jones also noted:

“A popular name at the top of the ballot in certain states could give anti-Trump Republicans who were thinking of sitting out the election a reason to go to the polls and vote for other Republicans on the ballot. ‘The main logic behind that, from what I can glean,’ Mair says, ‘is that people are really worried about down-ballot in that situation.’”

Yes, the biggest fear of Republican leaders is that Trump will be such a drag on the ticket that they will lose control of the Senate and also lose significant numbers of Republicans in the House. Such a scenario would be devastating to the GOP.

Donald Trump may be about to clinch the Republican nomination, but that doesn’t mean he has a clear path to the White House. There may very likely be more obstacles yet to come.

This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org.

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