“Webb has no base of support. He’ll get less votes than John Anderson.”
He’d be the the go to candidate for the gop-e. There is a certain percent of folks who will not vote for Trump under any circumstances. In the end, the rats will rally around her thighness. Let’s say she gets 45%. If the indie gets 11%, she wins. Of course the electoral college complicates things, but it’s not too far outside the realm of reality to see an indie candidate get above 10%. Even John Anderson got 5%.
We saw this in VA. It was an effective strategy.
How?
The thing with Trump is that he's bringing in all of those moderates and independents that the GOPe keeps telling us we need to "reach out" to. Plus the conservative base, and blue-collar Democrat types are crossing over for Trump.
That leaves the hard left. They're going to vote for Hillary because Webb isn't liberal enough. That leaves no support for Webb. His candidacy will have no reason to exist and I'd doubt he'll even run.
Oh hell no. No soft voters in this one. The polarization is complete, even before the primarieszzzz...
Trump IS Perot plus GOP base, for purposes of previous Presidential election measurement.
The rump indie in 2016 gets 2%, at best. In fact I'll be shocked if all outlier campaigns combined add up to 2% in the most-compelling 'take-a-stand' election since 1980.