AHC: Best right-wing 3rd party spoiler for Trump?

or more likely, no one gets to 270 and the house votes trump in if he's at 30% of the votes or so

honestly though, I doubt kasich would win any states, maybe not even ohio tbh, the electorate is polarized enough I have trouble seeing him going above 5-10%

There are three real possibilities. One is that Kasich bleeds votes away from Hillary and Trump at about the same clip and Trump wins since Kasich didn’t take enough votes to claim any states (or claimed his home state of Ohio and maybe Utah, which balked at voting for Trump at first but did anyway and Trump still wins.) If Trump claims Ohio and Utah, however, it will take a mere 13 faithless electors to push this to the House, where Trump probably won’t win.

The next possibility is that Trump splits the Republicans, setting up a 1912-style 3-way race. Kasich wins enough votes across the board to flip the election to Hillary.

The final possibility is what I proposed - Kasich flips votes on both sides and performs quite well, winning enough EVs to send it to the House. I really don’t think Trump wins if it goes to the House.
 

RousseauX

Donor
There are three real possibilities. One is that Kasich bleeds votes away from Hillary and Trump at about the same clip and Trump wins since Kasich didn’t take enough votes to claim any states (or claimed his home state of Ohio and maybe Utah, which balked at voting for Trump at first but did anyway and Trump still wins.) If Trump claims Ohio and Utah, however, it will take a mere 13 faithless electors to push this to the House, where Trump probably won’t win.

The next possibility is that Trump splits the Republicans, setting up a 1912-style 3-way race. Kasich wins enough votes across the board to flip the election to Hillary.

The final possibility is what I proposed - Kasich flips votes on both sides and performs quite well, winning enough EVs to send it to the House. I really don’t think Trump wins if it goes to the House.
trump absolutely wins if it goes to the house
 

RousseauX

Donor
It looked to me like the House, even the GOP, was scared shitless of a Trump presidency.
Until literally the morning after the election, then they realized trump will probably pass the key legislations the republicans wanted since 2010

In order to peel off democratic voters, Kasich had to concede things like letting obamacare stay, and promise no big tax cuts and probably putting in a moderate in scalia's SCOTUS seat. Republicans want tax cuts and obamacare gone and have being campaigning on it for 6 years, and yes the base wants their conservative scotus justice.

his margin of victory in EV and PV terms are going to be by far the lowest of the 3, giving him very weak legitimacy as a president.

at the end of the day there's a big GOP margin in the house, and they want to repeal obamacare and get their tax cuts, which trump will promise to do but Kasich will have campaigned on not doing.

also factor in tribalism and how the 20-25 odd GOP reps who would have to flip to put Kasich into office (and this is assuming 100% democrats are on board with kasich which they won't be) would have to deal with their next primary election

at the end of the day, trump's personal qualities were never enough to disqualify him with republican voters, hence the house will put him into office
 
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