As Donald Trump first started to gain steam as a Republican candidate for President last year, all potential nominees gathered for a public signing of a deal that would bar the field from running as a third party candidate. Mainly, this was done to lock Trump into not turning against the Republican Party. This was done for good reason by the GOP; if a conservative third party candidate were to run in the general election, it would siphon off votes from the Republican candidate and all but give the election to the Democrats. Something similar happened in 2000, when Ralph Nader’s candidacy took key votes away from Al Gore.
Now, Trump is threatening to take back the deal and run as a third party candidate. His primary complaint is the Cruz campaign accusing him of “pretending to be a Republican”, and approving of the Affordable Care Act. Trump explained, “The RNC is in default. When somebody’s in default, that means the other side can do what they have to do. … We’ve warned them twice, and they don’t listen. The bottom line is that the RNC is controlled by the establishment. That’s why the Republican Party for president has lost so much for so long.”
Trump is the frontrunner for the nomination, and is likely to have the most delegates going into the convention. However, he’s expected to be short of the 1,237 needed to secure the nomination, which should make the event very interesting. Trump running as an independent may very well happen come November.
