Washington, D.C.– ABC's White House chief correspondent Jonathan Karl said on Wednesday that senior GOP officials are exploring contingency plans for a scenario that is essentially unprecedented: Donald Trump dropping out of the presidential race before November.
Donald Trump is posing a peculiar situation for the Republican National Committee (RNC). His erratic behavior is throwing the GOP officials for an unprecedented loop. Never in recent history has there been a candidate quite like him. His supporters like to claim that he is honest, a good businessman, and true to his word. However, according to his business records, and his own Twitter account, he is neither a successful businessman nor honest. He has succeeded in offending several different minorities, and shows no remorse.
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So, taking into account Trump's track record of shirking responsibility and floundering for money and attention at all costs, GOP officials are seriously considering what would happen if Trump withdrew his name from the ballot. The question is, what can they do?
If Trump decided to drop out of the race, it would fall upon the shoulders of the RNC to replace him with another viable candidate. In order to offer the RNC enough time to find a substitute, Trump would have to withdraw from the race by early September, political analysts say.
Rule Number Nine of the RNC's bylaws allows for the committee to replace a nominee if said nominee willingly withdraws his or her name from consideration. The RNC has the option of meeting briefly and privately, or reconvening the national convention to elect a replacement.
The likely replacements, should Trump back out? Well, if the GOP were to learn their lesson from nominating Trump, they would elect one of two kinds of candidates: either a strictly traditional conservative, with all of Trump's morals and none of his insanity, to appeal to the far right and obtain more of their votes come November; or, someone who is much more middle ground, to hope to snatch some of the Democratic votes away from Hillary Clinton.
Whatever they may decide, nothing is going into effect unless Trump willingly backs down from the candidacy. And, considering his random and spontaneous tendencies, it does not seem that this is totally out of the question.
To read more about Trump's campaign, you can visit his official website here, or an unbiased analysis of his platform here.
