- Donald Trump shared an article calling on him to abandon Republican Party if it doesn't back him in 2024.
- The article said Trump could run as a third-party candidate, a move that would split the GOP vote.
In a move likely to cause some in the Republican Party heart palpitations, former President Donald Trump shared an article on Thursday that said he could run as a third-party candidate in the 2024 presidential election.
It is a move that would split the Republican Party vote and likely doom the party's 2024 ambitions.
In a posting on his Truth Social site, Trump shared an article from the pro-Trump website American Greatness saying the former president could leave the GOP to punish it for its disloyalty.
Writer Dan Gelernter said that Trump is still "admired and even loved by those who consider themselves 'ordinary' Americans," particularly those who reside "anywhere outside the Beltway."
Gelernter compared the situation to the 1912 presidential election, when Republican President Theodore Roosevelt ran as an independent, in a move that split the GOP and resulted in Democrat Woodrow Wilson's election.
He said that a Trump third-party candidacy could have a similar result, but that a Republican loss would teach the "corrupt gravy-train" a lesson.
Trump announced his bid for the Republican Party's 2024 presidential nomination in November.
However, the party underperformed expectations in the November midterms, failing to win control of the Senate and securing only a narrow House majority.
It's not the first time Trump has threatened the GOP with the prospect of a third-party run. Trump made the same threat in response to Republican criticism during his first presidential campaign back in 2015.
He also threatened to start a new party in 2021 as Republican senators weighed up whether to convict him in his impeachment trial over the Capitol riot, according to a book by ABC News' chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl.
Trump ran as a candidate for the Reform Party back in 2000, but dropped out after the primaries.
Bill Barr, who served as Trump's attorney general, wrote in a recent op-ed that in 2024 Trump could make good on his threat and try to "burn the whole house down" if he doesn't win the party's presidential nomination.
A series of recent polls indicate growing support among Republican voters for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is believed to be Trump's strongest rival for the 2024 nomination.