Quote:Trump could legit beat both Hillary and Kasich as an independent in a general election.

I think the 1912 election would be a better analogue. Teddy Roosevelt, a wildly popular President, ran as a third party in opposition to his former Republican colleague William Howard Taft. He and Taft split the Republican vote deeply, allowing Woodrow Wilson to win easily. If Roosevelt had run as a Republican, or the Republicans had backed him instead of Taft, Wilson would not have won in 1912.

 

In fact, the 1912 election has a lot of parallels to 2016. The Democratic Party faced a split of its own (albeit much more minor) when Eugene Debs ran under the Socialist Party's banner. I suspect the end result will be the same, too. The GOP convention will find a way to make someone, anyone, not named Trump the nominee, Trump will go to a third party and shred what's left of the Republicans, and the Democrat will take it as a result. I don't see Sanders running as a third party candidate, partially because he's already said he won't, and partially because I don't think he could live with himself if the 15% of the vote he took was enough to put Trump in the White House.

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