Not so far.
And by this point, a year out from losing, most failed candidates have been chewed up and spit out by their parties decisively.
Well, they haven’t nominated him. Of course, they haven’t nominated anyone else either.
To make my point more obvious; it’s 2022. There’s been no action on the 2024 presidential race at this point other than rumors and speculation. There’s nothing you can declare is evidence of what will happen.
Most failed candidates have enough political knowledge to know when their career is over. Trump is … how can I put this … stupid.
The fact that Donald Trump thinks he was a great president, doesn’t mean he was. The fact he thought Covid would be a minor issue, doesn’t mean it was. The fact he thinks he won the 2020 election, doesn’t mean he won it. The fact that he thinks he will win the 2024 election, doesn’t mean he will. The fact that he thought a few thousand rioters could overthrow the government, doesn’t mean they could. The fact he thinks the majority of voters want him back, doesn’t me they do. The fact that Trump has followers who believe these things, doesn’t make them true. That fact that Trump has opponents who believe these things, doesn’t make them true.
I don’t know who will get nominated or elected in 2024. Neither does anyone else. But I know who won the election in 2020 and I’m tired of arguing with people who seem to be unaware of this. I’m done with arguing about these things. I’m just going to sit back and watch to see what happens.
He doesn’t have “followers.” Jimmy Carter had “followers” in the 1980s. Hoover had “followers” in the 1930s. Trump has a majority of his party who support him for nomination in 2024, vehemently, violently, viciously. What shows you that his support is lessening? I see nothing to support that opinion, and a lot to argue against it. Not feelings, but facts.
I’m just old enough to remember the last time there was a third party candidate that had a legitimate shot at, if not winning, then at least affecting the result - George Wallace in 1968. A lot of people made a big deal about John Anderson in 1980 - in fact, at least one magazine had an “election night electoral vote tracker” that had a column for the states he would win - but in the end, he finished behind both Reagan and Carter in every state.
If Trump wins the GOP nomination, I don’t think anybody else could run a serious third-party campaign; the “never Trumpers” in the GOP would mainly vote for Biden. Then again, if the Democratic nominee is, say, Kamala Harris, or somebody else from the more progressive side of the party, that’s another story.
However, if Trump loses the nomination, I can easily see him running as an independent, assuming too many states don’t invent ways to keep him off of the ballot (“Er, uh, for an independent to run in this state, you need to release all of your income tax returns for the past 10 years,” and if he does, “Er, uh, for an independent to run, you cannot have been impeached by the House of Representatives”), assuming any pass Constitutional muster. If this does happen, we might as well declare Biden the winner right now.
Can’t see that at all. He’d have no chance of winning, and a big chance of coming in third. Plus he’d have no coattails effect for all those running on the GOP ticket, so they would be telling him to go hang.
I was 13 in 1950. While many Republicans did support McCarthy, the party as a whole did not stand up for him. He was, after all, censured by the senate, after which he faded from view and died an alcoholic. The Republican part has fallen for Trump in spades and I don’t see how the party can recover.
The best bet for the anti-Trumpers is to support the Libertarians (assuming they can’t support the Dems).
Truman won the 1948 by running against the 80th congress. His “Give 'em hell, Harry” campaign. Biden’s speech two days ago reminded me of that. Not the speech of a tired old man.
It would be very difficult for Trump (or any other candidate) to wait until after he officially lost the nomination then try to run as an independent. Most states’ deadlines to file as an independent are in July or early August and have signature requirements that can take a few weeks to gather. Certainly not doable if he waits until the nominating convention in August. Even if he dropped out after Super Tuesday, he’d miss deadlines in North Carolina and Texas. He may be able to sue his way onto those ballots but that’s doubtful. Logistically, it’s just not a realistic option.
Ralph Nader, 2000.
IIRC the GOP donated to Nader’s campaign (in a big way). They knew he was a spoiler. It paid off.
And if Cheney or another “sane” Republican ran third-party, she’d likely attract voters who would otherwise vote Dem in opposition to Trump – possibly enough to hand battleground states to Trump.
There’s the nub–would Cheney draw more voters from the right or from the left? I have no idea, but my prejudices say she’d draw more from the right.
ISTR data from 2020 showing that significant numbers of Biden voters went GOP down-ticket. (At work so can’t chase down a cite.) Those are the voters I fear would vote for Cheney, especially if the Dem nominee were Harris and not Biden.
OTOH, if Trump were the third-candidate, the Dems would easily win every purple state and possibly light red states like Ohio, Iowa, Florida and Texas.
All this talk about potential third party runs is fun but pointless. There is never going to be a third party candidate with significant support. But they can spoil it for others- Ralph Nader kept Al Gore out of the White House, Jill Stein kept Hillary Clinton from winning. If, heaven forbid, Donnie gets the GOP nomination that will prevent any Republican from running third party. Many Republicans may dislike him privately, but they’d rather see him win than any Democrat and thus wouldn’t rock the boat.
I think it’s relatively clear that any third-party ticket would hurt the Democratic candidate more than Donald Trump.
A third-party candidate will either be (a) a “mainstream, anti-Trump” Republican or (b) a “progressive” left-wing candidate.
(b) is obviously bad for Democrats.
(a) seems like it’s bad for Trump but I don’t think so. Instead it’s likely just to peel off the handful of 2016 Trump voters that went for Biden in 2020. Those voters are the ones that helped Biden to victory.
It would actually be the worst thing for the Democrats. They have built a shaky new coalition around centrist college-educated suburban whites that absolutely hated Trump to go with their typical minority and progressive factions. The cost of this was losses with working-class rural and exurban whites who are now all-in on the culture-war tactics. They also lost a decent amount of ground with Hispanic males as well.
So I think a Cheney run just takes away the new Democrat anti-Trump voters without doing a damn thing about the losses the party has taken in other areas.
More broadly, I have pretty significant concerns that this new Democratic alignment can survive a post-Trump GOP (by which I mean post-Trump the person, not post-Trump in policy and tone). Races like the VA GOV indicate to me that suburban whites will flock back to the GOP if the focus is on culture-war issues and Trump himself is not the candidate.
But we shall see.
It’s very unlikely that Jill Stein kept Hillary Clinton from winning in 2016. While Stein’s vote total was larger than Trump’s margin in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the spoiler scenario requires that large numbers of her voters would have turned out and voted for Clinton in all three states. In Pennsylvania particularly, almost all of her voters would have had to vote for Clinton to overcome Trump’s margin. It’s likely that many of Stein’s supporters would have stayed home on Election Day.
Agreed, but I think Cheney is a wild card. If she gets turfed out in WY, she doesn’t have much to lose, and “Fuck me–oh, no, my good man, fuck you” to gain by running a third-party campaign.
The Wyoming Republican primary will be held on August 16, 2022. If Liz Cheney runs and loses, she won’t have time to set up a third-party challenge.
I think Roger_That was envisioning a run for president, rather than a “sore-loser” run to regain her House seat.
I think the question is whether she would wait until she loses the primary for her Rep seat or not to launch a third-party presidential campaign. I sort of think she could see which way the wind is blowing long before then, but I know little of Wyoming politics.
What she has to lose is two years of her life on a quixotic campaign for President with no money, no party infrastructure and almost no chance of being successful. I mean, it’s always easy to volunteer someone else to be the martyr for the cause. But Cheney’s in her mid-50s and presumably wants to be able to do something productive with her life. As much as she’s in the doghouse right now with her party, she’s probably still got enough reputation and relationships that she could find a place in a conservative lobby shop, consultancy, think tank, etc. But a third-party run for President explicitly designed to undermine the Republican nominee would definitively burn whatever bridges she has left.