The Slatest

Anti-Trump Republicans Tried to Woo Mark Cuban for Third-Party Bid

Mark Cuban offers his critique to finalists at the Global Startup Showcase as one of four judges at 2015 WSJD Live on October 20, 2015 in Laguna Beach, California.  

FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

Republicans who detest Donald Trump have gone into overdrive. A group of GOP members who can’t fathom the thought of casting a ballot for Trump, including Mitt Romney, are actively trying to get a candidate to sign up for an independent presidential bid to help keep the real estate mogul out of the White House, reports the Washington Post. Although the effort is hardly new, it has “intensified significantly in the 10 days since Trump effectively locked up the Republican nomination,” notes the Post.

One person who will definitely not be the candidate? Mark Cuban. The billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks rejected the proposal outright. But not because he’s afraid of going up against Trump mind you. “He could come after me all he wanted, and he knows I would put him in his place,” Cuban said of Trump. But the host of Shark Tank simply doesn’t think it’s a realistic prospect. “I don’t see it happening,” he said. “There isn’t enough time.”

Cuban is hardly unique. The anti-Trump Republicans, which includes commentators like William Kristol and Erick Erickson, are having a hard time getting anyone to sign up for what would surely be a losing battle that could alienate anyone who takes it on from the GOP as a whole. Romney himself has reportedly approached the two men seen as the top two prospects for the job: Ohio Gov. John Kasich and freshman Sen. Ben Sasse personally.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus made it clear on Friday that any Republicans trying to organize a third-party candidate would be doing a disservice to the party as a whole. “They may as well jump off the top floor of a building because that’s what we’d be doing by having a third party,” Priebus told Reuters.