2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: What if both Sanders & Trump went 3rd party, creating a FOUR WAY race? [View all]Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)Cruz won't do it because he is intelligent enough to know he can not win, running would end future hopes for a run. He will be running in 2020 and 2024 as a Republican, and does not want to screw the deal.
Kasich does not have the following to run, and can not win.
They will stand back and let Trump implode on his own.
Sanders said at the beginning that the does not want to elect a Republican, and he knows politics well enough that an independent run would elect whichever Republican wins their nomination process.
Finally, there are sore loser laws that make an independent run pointless, except to throw the election to the other side.
[link:http://georgetown.lawreviewnetwork.com/files/pdf/99-4/Kang.PDF|Sore Loser Laws and Democratic Contestation
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Third parties are spoilers.