# Conservative ('republican') leaning third party in 2020 - is this possible? Not gonna happen? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 27, 2019, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-republican-leaning-third-party-in-2020-is-this-possible-not-gonna-happen/828496 "2019-01-27T21:11:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-republican-leaning-third-party-in-2020-is-this-possible-not-gonna-happen/828496/21 "2019-01-28T05:24:50Z")
Disband the Republican Party. The Democratic Party will schism into progressive and conservative factions soon enough. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-republican-leaning-third-party-in-2020-is-this-possible-not-gonna-happen/828496/22 "2019-01-28T08:59:53Z")
> [@digs](#): > > I could see the Koch Bros and a few country clubs’ worth of billionaires approaching Mitt Romney and getting him to primary against Trump… > > OR, run as a “Conservative Party” candidate. Isn’t Mitt Romney considered rather liberal by GOP standards? (Or at least he _was_ liberal. Recently he’s moved strongly to the right — have his principles really changed, or is he just posturing for the deplorable base?) ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-republican-leaning-third-party-in-2020-is-this-possible-not-gonna-happen/828496/23 "2019-01-28T14:17:33Z")
Not gonna happen. Republicans crave power more than life itself. They aren’t going to splinter their vote and let Democrats win. ---
**Author:** ![Bayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bayaker/32/3454_2.png) [@Bayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bayaker)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-republican-leaning-third-party-in-2020-is-this-possible-not-gonna-happen/828496/24 "2019-01-28T15:27:31Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > The small r’s don’t like Trump, but that doesn’t mean they’d stomach a Democratic president. That sums it up in a nutshell. Anecdotally(yeah, I know), I’ve known lots of people on both the left and the right who hold their nose every four years and vote for the lesser of two evils, and that almost always means the party with which they most often agree. This is the position I find myself in, except that I think of myself as large “R”, small “l”. I don’t like Donald Trump, and weaseled out by voting for Johnson(L) in 2016. That was easy for me to do since my vote was not going to prevent Trump from winning Texas, and I could feel a sort of false virtue in throwing my vote away. But I’m sure that if I was in Florida or North Carolina, or any other “battleground” state, I would have voted for Trump because I could never forgive myself for potentially helping elect the Democrat. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-republican-leaning-third-party-in-2020-is-this-possible-not-gonna-happen/828496/25 "2019-01-28T17:07:19Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Basically, I expect Republican voters to hold their noses (a hell of a lot better than Democrat voters did with Hillary) and vote for Trump. This becomes even more likely if Dems commit suicide again and nominate someone who is seen as even more objectionable than Trump (envisioning a scenario where all the declared nominees have trouble gaining more than minimal support and/or self-destruct, leaving Hillary to ride to the rescue). On the other hand based on my extremely limited survey, there are potential Trump voters who’d hold their nose and vote for a Democrat viewed as semi-reasonable, i.e. Biden or possibly Bloomberg. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-republican-leaning-third-party-in-2020-is-this-possible-not-gonna-happen/828496/26 "2019-01-28T17:24:16Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > I’m absolutely not a Republican and I don’t identify as a conservative, so salt this as you deem appropriate, but honestly I think y’all could do worse than beg [Kay Bailey Hutchinson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kay_Bailey_Hutchison) on bended knee to consider carrying your banner forward, if not in 2020 then while you’ve still got her. I can’t promise that I’d vote for her but I respect her and would not feel the country was in bad hands or anything if she won. She’s old as hell though; about 76, I’d guess (she went to the same hs as my dad, although 2 classes ahead). Seriously though, I think what’s going to happen is that the moderates who used to vote Republican more often than not are going to continue migrating Democrat as they have been, if the GOP persists with Trump and the associated hyper-right nonsense. Basically the Blue Dog Democrats are going to become a lot more prominent as the non-crazy former Republicans migrate toward the Democratic party. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2019, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-republican-leaning-third-party-in-2020-is-this-possible-not-gonna-happen/828496/27 "2019-01-29T00:52:52Z")
> [@digs](#): > > I could see the Koch Bros and a few country clubs’ worth of billionaires approaching Mitt Romney and getting him to primary against Trump… They’ve already told donors that their network [won’t be supporting Trump in 2020.](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/426902-koch-network-will-not-back-trump-for-reelection-report) That at least leaves their money and support apparatus (like their polling subsidiary) on the table for someone else. ---
**Author:** ![Littleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ccd318/32.png) [@Littleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Littleman)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-republican-leaning-third-party-in-2020-is-this-possible-not-gonna-happen/828496/28 "2019-01-31T02:21:06Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > If the people voting in the Presidential election could utilize instant-runoff voting, also known as ranked-choice voting (\* notes below), and thus have their initial first choice vote for Gary Johnson or John Kasich or Susan Collins or Ron Paul or Bill Weld or Kay Bailey Hutchinson not turn into a defacto vote for whoever the Democrats are currently fielding, so that their second (and if necessary third, fourth etc) choices be taken into account as the least vote-getters are discarded from serious consideration, I think Donald Trump would be the eventual choice of lots of folks registered Republican but the first choice of damn few. > > _Most_ conservatively-inclined voters will not be inclined to throw their vote away in the general. Considerably more will be inclined to support a solid-looking candidate in the primaries if it looks like said candidate is not just a spoiler and has a 1/4 decent chance of dethroning Trump. > > I’m absolutely not a Republican and I don’t identify as a conservative, so salt this as you deem appropriate, but honestly I think y’all could do worse than beg [Kay Bailey Hutchinson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kay_Bailey_Hutchison) on bended knee to consider carrying your banner forward, if not in 2020 then while you’ve still got her. I can’t promise that I’d vote for her but I respect her and would not feel the country was in bad hands or anything if she won. > > ETA: the fucking notes that I forgot: I think any individual state can choose to allocate its designated electoral votes using ranked-choice/instant-runoff voting if they are so inclined, but obviously that doesn’t carry forward to what happens in the Electoral College. To truly utilize this technique to vote for president, each state would have to have the option of casting ITS votes within the EC using ranked-choice voting, which would be immensely cool but would presumably require a constitutional amendment, although conceivably just a new federal law (??). For purposes of this what-if, pretend that your state gets to cast ITS electoral votes for its first choice and then fall back on second choice if no candidate gets 50+ % of the vote, so that if your entire state goes with (let’s say) John Kasich but he’s 3rd in a 3-person situation in the EC, your state goes to its second-tier vote-getter, Donald Trump or whatever. At first thought, this sounds extremely cool! Probably even necessary given the near 50/50 divide that’s plagued the nation for many years. People would be a whole lot more inclined to chance a third party vote. Knowing they weren’t just throwing it away and hoping that eventually someone will realize that neither party represents them. I’m learning that if anything I’m probably most closely libertarian…I think. Both Democrats and republicans have a few small things to offer. I just can’t go Democrat…too whiny… Too preachy… Too someone pooped their pants so let’s put diapers on everyone. It’s not fair waah waah waah. On the other hand I really can’t stand hard core pro lifers either. Nor the let’s make the rich super rich and everyone else slaves policies of republicans. Nor their racist undertones (concious or otherwise) which then get blown wildy out of proportion by whiny Dems. In any case it would be a first step toward a practical non completely bi- partisan system. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-republican-leaning-third-party-in-2020-is-this-possible-not-gonna-happen/828496/29 "2019-01-31T21:01:00Z")
> [@Littleman](#): > > I just can’t go Democrat…too whiny… Too preachy… Too someone pooped their pants so let’s put diapers on everyone. It’s not fair waah waah waah. Have you seen those new Bud Light commercials? The ones with the king who drinks Bud Light and everyone shouts dilly dilly? Except for the one guy who drinks mead and everyone laughs at him? Those commercials are trying to sell you beer. And they’re doing it by trying to make you afraid. They’re telling you if you don’t drink their beer, everyone is going to laugh at you. They want you to be scared so you’ll go out and buy Bud Light and yell dilly dilly. The Republicans are doing the same thing. They’re trying to convince you that everyone is laughing at the Democrats. And that if you don’t vote Republican, everyone will laugh at you. They want to make you afraid so you’ll do what they tell you in order to feel safe. You shouldn’t be a Republican because they tell you you should. And you shouldn’t be a Democrat because I tell you you should. You should decide what you believe and do it because it’s what you think is right. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-republican-leaning-third-party-in-2020-is-this-possible-not-gonna-happen/828496/30 "2019-01-31T23:54:14Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > . . . shouldn’t be a Republican . . . shouldn’t be a Democrat . . . You should decide what you believe and do it because it’s what you think is right. And if he believes neither? Then which shouldn’t he believe? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-republican-leaning-third-party-in-2020-is-this-possible-not-gonna-happen/828496.md?page=1)