Stopping Trump

What follows is not a desperate plea for the nation to come to its senses, nor is it a fanciful plan by which the Republican “establishment” suddenly discovers a competence and sense of purpose it has long since frittered away.

This is a plan by which a relative handful of purposeful Americans, and one genuine leader, could prevent Donald Trump from becoming President.

In offering this plan, I make certain assumptions.

First, though I am very much for Bernie Sanders, I assume that the Democratic Party’s coalition of demographic groups will succeed in making Hillary Clinton their nominee.

Second, I assume that Donald Trump will continue to ride his present wave of popularity to the Republican nomination, and that this will become mathematically inevitable within the next month or six weeks.

Third, I assume that – in this anti-establishment year – there is every prospect that Donald Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton in an election in which millions of Americans ended up voting for third-party candidates, or no one at all.

Fourth, I assume that – given something like the usual Electoral math – the electoral vote between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump would be close.

An election contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton has been well described as “the election nobody wants”.  In truth, a significant number of Americans do want one or the other of these two, deeply-flawed candidates.  But it’s safe to say that, whichever of them won, a significant majority of Americans would be unhappy with that winner.

Given those four assumptions, there is certainly room for a hasty, third-party or independent challenger to appear. 

The problem is that third-party challenges – even those which begin a year or more before Election Day – generally lack the funds, organization, expertise, name-recognition, and press coverage available to major-party nominees.

The sheer task of mounting a fifty-state (plus DC) challenge has, again and again, proved overwhelming.

Basically, it can’t be done.

Moreover, there is a natural resistance to third-party challengers.  A challenger from the right, or from the populist “angry America” will – like Ross Perot in 1992 – tend to split the Republican vote, electing a Democrat.  A challenger from the left, or from the environmentalist “greens”, will – like Ralph Nader in 2000 – tend to split the liberal/progressive vote, electing a Republican.

Knowing this, most Americans are reluctant to countenance a nationwide, third-party challenge from their own end of the political spectrum.

But suppose the third-party challenge were not nationwide?

Suppose it were organized to contest only a handful of states, in which the third-party candidate had a realistic chance of winning?

A focused, third-party challenge, limited to a few states, could concentrate all the money, expertise, energy and passion of that challenge in a small area while the major-party candidates were, necessarily, waging nationwide campaigns.

Managed with care, a third-party challenge – limited to a handful of states – could result in neither of the major-party candidates winning a majority of the Electoral College.

In which case, under our Constitution, the choice of America’s next President would fall to the House of Representatives – with the three candidates winning the most Electoral votes as the finalists.  In that election, each state would have one vote, regardless of the size of its delegation.

Those are the rules.

Now, imagine this scenario:  An attractive, competent, challenger decides to enter the Presidential race, running in only two or three carefully-chosen states.  Focusing all of his or her resources on those states, the third-party challenger pulls it off - gaining sufficient Electoral votes to prevent either major-party candidate from winning a majority of the Electoral College.

The choice then goes to the House, voting by states.  And the challenger, with only a handful of Electoral votes, would have an equal chance of gaining the necessary 26 votes for election.

Now, given the political realities of the moment, the next House of Representatives will almost certainly be Republican.  More importantly, it will almost certainly contain a majority of state delegations with Republican majorities. 

And it’s difficult to imagine a Republican House electing a Democratic challenger – even at the cost of electing Donald Trump.

So this year, to pull this off, the challenger would have to be a Republican.

But it could be a sane, competent, respected Republican - someone most Americans would agree was preferable to Donald Trump. 

Suppose, for example, the challenger were Speaker Paul Ryan – Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential running-mate in 2012.  Speaker Ryan is far too conservative for my tastes, but he’s certainly capable, intelligent and experienced.  I’d vastly prefer him to Donald Trump.

Suppose Mr. Ryan ran for President in his home state – Wisconsin – which has ten electoral votes.  That might do it.

To be safe, suppose he also ran in a neighboring state – say, Minnesota.  And a heavily-Republican state such as Utah or Indiana, where his candidacy wouldn't be likely to tip the state to Mrs. Clinton.

And suppose he won enough Electoral votes to throw the election into the House.

He’s the Speaker.  And he’s not Donald Trump. 

Mr. Ryan would almost certainly be our 45^th President.

And I, for one, would be greatly relieved.