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Could Trump
Lose GOP Primaries, and Legally Run in General Election?
by Katrina Trinko
April 12, 2011
If Donald Trump wants to see how he fares in the GOP primaries, and
then run for president outside the GOP, there are only four states
where his participation in a GOP primary could impact a non-Republican
run in the general election. Those four states are Mississippi, Texas,
Ohio, and South Dakota, according to Ballot Access News editor Richard
Winger.
What sets them apart from the other states is that their “sore loser”
laws, which bar candidates from running as an independent candidate
and/or third party candidate in the general election after losing a
primary, impact presidential candidates. In most states with sore loser
laws, that’s not the case. What’s the upshot? Well, the earliest
primaries among these four states are Ohio’s and Texas’s, which fall on
March 6th, after over 20 state primaries have already been held.
So Trump can stay in long enough to see if he can nab the nomination,
and leave before these four primaries are even held. That way, he
doesn’t have to deal with any complication in those four states in the
general election.
What if he does stay in, and then later decides to run outside the GOP?
Well then, if Trump decides to run as Independent, he couldn’t be on
the ballot in any of the four states. But if he decides to run as a
third-party candidate, he could run in three of the four states.
Currently, Texas does not permit candidates who lose a primary to run
as the candidate of a different party in the general election.
Bottom line: Trump can easily stay in for a large chunk of the GOP
primary without hurting his ability to run as a third-party or
independent candidate in the general election.
Read more at the National Review
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