Ben Carson Threatens to Leave Republican Party Over Possible Convention Challenge

Fourteen Republicans are still in the hunt for the nomination, a wide field that has wrestled for months with how to confront Trump. Ted Cruz of Texas has taken a substantial lead over Trump. Carson gets the most personally favorable ratings in the GOP’s contingent, but Trump gets the worst and he’s still running away with the polls.

Trump’s call for a ban on muslims entering the United States in the wake of the San Bernardino massacre sparked a firestorm of criticism, but also support for from many Republican voters. The comment drew a rebuke from former Vice President Dick Cheney, among others. Like Trump, Carson has not been embraced by the party’s establishment wing. But even if it is true that a Republican in the Bronx is more likely to hold moderate views than a Republican in Alabama, it’s not at all clear that this factor cuts against Trump.

With the Iowa caucuses getting closer and Donald Trump continuing to lead in the polls, the Republican Party power brokers are getting desperate.

This plan, the Post reports, would go into effect if Trump were to emerge from next year’s Republican primaries as the eventual nominee. While an independent run is “highly unlikely”, he said, the pledge is a “two-way street”. “But he signed the pledge based on everybody playing by the rules”.

“I’ve been hearing about these closed-door meetings and I don’t like that”, Trump said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union”.

Donald Trump and Ben Carson could dangle the possibility of independent runs for president well into the primary season next year, but they can’t wait forever.

While the positive poll numbers are now boosting The Donald, he can not rest on his laurels, since there is an ongoing plot to dethrone him as the front runner. That tactic has generally been rewarded with substantial media coverage and, according to his campaign, an increase in financial support. He wants to keep the threat of leaving the Republican Party on the table, as an option. Party leaders have watched with dismay as outsider candidates, led by the flamboyant real estate mogul, have edged out establishment candidates. “That is their bind”.

At least one attendee at the private dinner, which is a regular gathering of leading Republicans in Washington, told The Associated Press that suggestions of manipulation by party leaders were dramatically exaggerated.

Senior GOP officials met at a routine private dinner this week and discussed the possibility of a brokered Republican convention, which hasn’t happened in decades. The statement comes after The Washington Post published a report saying party bosses have already conspired to do so. “My campaign is about “We the People” not ‘They the Powerful'”.

He cited a report in the Washington Post that said Republican leaders were preparing for a brokered convention to pick their 2016 White House candidate. The last Republican brokered nominee was Thomas Dewey in 1948. Multiple candidates could win a majority in eight or more states, or no one could.