Real-estate developer Donald Trump would increasingly consider a third-party presidential campaign if the GOP establishment were to treat him unfairly, he told The Hill in a Wednesday interview.
"I'll have to see how I'm being
treated by the Republicans," Trump said. "Absolutely, if they're not
fair, that would be a factor."
The Republican businessman, who
is leading most national polls, is under attack from many leaders in his
own party who view his candidacy as a sideshow that could harm the GOP
brand.
But as The New York Times previously reported,
what some party higher-ups fear most is Trump launching a third-party
campaign that could pull more votes from the Republican nominee than the
Democrat in the general election.
"You've got to keep him in the
tent," former Rep. Tom Davis (R-Virginia) told the newspaper. "He just
wreaks havoc, and every vote he takes comes out of our hide."
A poll released earlier in this
week may confirm that fear. Testing a hypothetical three-way matchup
among Trump, former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida (R), and Democratic
front-runner Hillary Clinton, a Washington Post/ABC survey found Clinton (46%) easily ahead of Bush (30%) and Trump (20%).
Trump, speaking to The Hill about a potential third-party bid, singled out the Republican National Committee in particular for being unfair to him."The RNC has not been supportive," Trump said. "They were always supportive when I was a contributor. I was their fair-haired boy. The RNC has been, I think, very foolish."
The RNC criticized Trump last weekend after he panned the war record of Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona). Trump said McCain was "not a war hero" before reversing himself and repeatedly saying the opposite. McCain spent five years as a prisoner after his plane was shot down during the Vietnam War.
"There is no place in our party
or our country for comments that disparage those who have served
honorably," an RNC spokesman said in a statement.
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