Could Jeb Bush win as an Independent in 2016?

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Despite trailing in the GOP primaries, Jeb Bush still is  consistently in a tight race in prospective GE Polls.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_United_States_presidential_election,_2016  

[Zache]

No.

[Maxwell]

He has the worst political instincts I've ever seen, clearly not a deep or strategic thinker. He will lose any general election match-up.

[Ebsy]

Stupid thread.

[Bigby]

At this rate, even Chaffee would have defeated Bush.

[I support Sanders]

No. If the Republican nominee is Trump, Bush will split the Republican vote; if the nominee is someone like Kasich, Rubio, or Christie, Bush will likely endorse.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Stupid thread.

[yankeesfan]

"Could Jeb Bush win as an _________ in 2016?"

The answer is no.

[bagelman]

In the above scenario the house might vote him in.

[EliteLX]

Could Jeb Bush win an election with a divided GOP? Of course not, silly question.

Could Jeb Bush fight out an election? Yes, he could make a hell of a run in one and possibly even get a win. To argue otherwise is to be ignorant of recent state & national polls showing extremely competitive standings with Jeb, and to ride on the Atlas Anti-Jeb Train™. His campaign is struggling hard right now, he's made mistakes, but that's somewhat of a different story with the field this time around.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

If blue is Donald Trump, the house might vote him in.

This isn't how reality works

[Orser67]

If Trump won the nomination and then had his campaign blown up by some sort of huge scandal (but Trump refused to get out of the race) and meanwhile the economy is tanking and Hillary is hurt by some other scandal, then maybe. But even then there are probably better options than Bush for establishment conservatives.

Imo Kasich is the one guy who would make sense as an independent candidate.

[Xing]

The only way that ANYONE could win as a independent would be for the Republican and Democratic parties to nominate complete joke candidates who party members with any sense at all wouldn't vote for. This country is generally far too polarized for an Independent to win a national election.

[pbrower2a]

The only way that ANYONE could win as a independent would be for the Republican and Democratic parties to nominate complete joke candidates who party members with any sense at all wouldn't vote for. This country is generally far too polarized for an Independent to win a national election.

The point. A John Anderson might get 40% of the vote if the Democrat is George McGovern and the Republican is Barry Goldwater. One of the two nominees typically isn't so crazy as the other.

Jeb Bush would split the conservative-leaning vote to the benefit of Hillary Clinton.  She would win a 44-36-20 split of states that no Democrat has won since Jimmy Carter won them in 1976.

Without such a split I see Hillary Clinton doing well enough to win:

You could exchange Ohio for Virginia.

Because of the involvement of Donald Trump in businesses contrary to Mormon behavior,  I could imagine Utah being divided nearly into equal thirds... but basically Bush would split the white vote in the South, with a result like this:

,

yellow representing states that Hillary Clinton wins with less than 45% of the vote

[DS0816]

The system is too rigged, with help by the voters themselves, nationwide, for anyone not on the ballot with one of the two major political parties to feasibly be able to win. The Republican-vs.-Democratic party votes have been combining for at least 96 percent since 2000. The fact that no state's electoral votes have carried outside of Republican and Democratic since 1968 says enough.