(Vanity) The Mitt Romney Doomsday Scenario

[GLDNGUN]

The NeverTrump folks are desperately searching for someone to run as a 3rd-party candidate to stop Trump. They would need someone with instant name recognition, money, nothing to lose in the way of current elective office and the ability to unite the NeverTrump blue bloods and NeverTrump conservatives. Romney would get all sorts of endorsements from big-name GOP pols like the Bushes, Graham, Sasse, etc., perhaps even Ted Cruz. Romney could say he is doing it reluctantly to "save the country" and offer Americans a 3rd option. The GOPs that support him instead of the party's standard-bearer can rationalize and say "Hey, Romney is a Republican and was our party's nominee 4 years ago, so he's mainstream".

Would Romney have a chance of beating Trump and dem nominee in the general election? No, I would assume Romney would come in a distant third. So then how could he possibly end up as President?

All he has to do is get enough electoral votes to keep both Trump and the dem nominee from getting a majority (270) of electoral votes. Romney could do that by winning just 1 state, while Trump and the dem nominee split the other electoral down the middle. In reality Romney could probably peal off 2 or more states, such as Utah and Idaho for starters.

With no candidate getting a majority of electoral votes the election of the President then goes to the House of Representatives, where the top 3 electoral vote getters qualify for the "run off". Each state's Congressional delegations vote and the winner of each state gets 1 vote. So Utah is worth 1 vote, same as California and every other state.

In such a scenario it's safe to assume that the states with a democrat-majority delegation will vote for the democrat nominee straight up. That would be 15 of the 50 states, leaving Trump and Romney to split 33 GOP-majority delegate states. Maine and New Hampshire each are split 1-1 Dem-GOP, so they may be wildcards or may cancel each other out.

Arizona and Colorado have a very slim GOP-majorities in their state delegations, meaning if the GOP reps split their votes between Trump and Romney instead of uniting behind one candidate, those states will also go Dem as the dem reps will all vote for their nominee. That could put the dem nominee up to 17 states, leaving 31 states remaining.

WHO are the GOP office holders in those 31-33 states going to vote for? The outsider Trump? Or establishment Romney? Are those GOP office holders mostly establishment guys themselves? Even if Trump had the most popular and electoral votes, would they vote the will of the people? Or their own self interests? Do I need to even answer that question?

If Romney gets enough GOP state delegations to vote for him to surpass Trump and the Dem, then viola - President Romney.

Almost as bizarrely, the Senate would vote for the VP among the top 2 electoral vote getters, leaving Romney's VP nominee out. A GOP majority Senate would then probably take Trump's VP nominee, assuming it's someone they could abide, like Chris Christie.

This is the nightmare scenario that I fear, where Romney not only denies Trump the Presidency but grabs it for himself.

The fact that Romney knows he would have a chance to do this makes it even more likely he will run.

[MHT]

He would take the Magic Underwear vote in Utah....which could be problematic....

[Lurkinanloomin]

Nobody is going to vote for that phony Romney.

[Williams]

Most likely he would just elect Hillary.

[TexasCruzin]

Bullcrap and I say again, Total Bullcrap.

[BenLurkin]

Romney president is far from ideal. But hardly a nightmare.

Hillary is a nightmare

[SERKIT]

It shall be called the “Hillary Clinton Victory Party”. Mittens forgets how many if us held our noses and reluctantly voted for him. He owes it to us to hold his nose and back Trump. Pragmatism Trumps Ideological Purity.

[Parley Baer]

I voted for Mitt in 2012 but I will not do it again. What happened to the no 3rd party pledge?

[steve86]

Interesting!

[SamAdams76]

"Jebbie Old Boy, it would appear that we are back in the saddle!"

[mrsmith]

You don’t consider the future prospects of such a perversion of the voters by a Party.
Maybe 10 Congressmen would be happy with only two more years in the House.

[FlingWingFlyer]

#nevermitt

I wonder how much Soros and Clinton are paying him.

[ConservativeMind]

There aren't enough people to vote for a luke-warm liberal. He will pull the “NeverTrump conservatives” and that is it. Heck, I signed a Green party for president petition today, so Hillary will have the Green party take some Sanders protest votes away.

I love that I visit my local co-op store for select items. I would have missed the Green party thing, otherwise.

[thoughtomator]

He’ll split the Hillary vote, not the Trump vote. Let him run.

[catnipman]

“Mitt Romney running as a independent in the 2016 general Presidential election is quickly becoming a very strong possibility, folks.”

I haven’t seen a single thing that a Romney 3rd party run is a “very strong possibility”. It’s probably not even a very weak possibility given the enormous effort to mount even a barely plausable 3rd party effort. So far, the only thing that seems to have actually happened is that fool Romney met that fool Bill Kristol over “glasses of water”, where they probably wrung their hands like a pair of old ladies.

“The scary and nearly unthinkable result is that he could end up not just denying Donald Trump the Presidency but could become President himself.”

That’s so absurd as to be laughable. Not a snowball’s chance in hell of Romney winning 3rd party when he couldn’t win with all the resources of the GOPe at his disposal 4 years ago, not to mention, 3rd party runs in the U.S. have been complete jokes during modern election history.

[Reno89519]

Not likely, just more wishful thinking of some sore losers and never Trump people. Besides, if I recall correctly, there are state-level dates coming up, maybe even passed that make an independent or 3rd party run difficult at best. Like others are writing, I can’t imaging Romney or another candidate would get much traction.

[little jeremiah]

Romney would tie with the Green party candidate. If that; probably more for the G.P.

[theoilpainter]

He would have to win states like VA, NC Wisc, Fla and Ohio to deny someone 270.

[CyberAnt]

Well .. silly .. not doing a 3rd party run .. that doesn’t apply to the GOP-e; didn’t you know that ..????????

[CyberAnt]

WoW ..!!! I was wondering that too.