Why an independent bid by Trump would face a speed bump in N.C.

If Republican Donald Trump decides to make an independent run for president, he could hit a speed bump in North Carolina.

That’s because the state has one of the toughest ballot access laws in the country.

“It’s kind of a tie between North Carolina and Texas as the (biggest) headache for anybody running for president outside the two major parties,” says Richard Winger, editor of the California-based Ballot Access News.

Earlier this year, Trump signed a pledge promising to support the party’s nominee and not to run as an independent. But since then he has left the door open to an independent run.

That may be unlikely. But if he did run, Trump could have company.

Presidential candidate Ben Carson also has threatened to leave the Republican Party. Dr. Jill Stein, presidential candidate of the Green Party, also is trying to get on the N.C. ballot.

To do that, an independent or third-party candidate needs to submit petitions with the names of 89,366 voters. That’s 2 percent of the total number who voted in the last gubernatorial election.

To put it in context, an independent needs a total of 592,000 signatures or supporters to get on ballots across the country. That means North Carolina would account for a little more than one-sixth of all the signatures necessary.

“Most states are pretty reasonable, but there are a handful of states that are real nightmares,” says Winger. “It’s the last five or six that represent two-thirds of the burden.”

Not that independent and third-party candidates haven’t run before in North Carolina.

From John Anderson in 1980 to Lenora Fulani in 1988, Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996 and Pat Buchanan in 1980, some independents have made their way onto the state’s presidential ballot.

But not everybody has. In 2000, consumer advocate Ralph Nader got on the ballot in 43 states. North Carolina was not one of them.

Even when they do get on the ballot, independent candidates usually don’t fare well.

The most successful was Perot in 1992, when he took 13.7 percent of the vote against Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George Bush. No one else cracked single digits.

Critics say the state’s ballot law hurts voters.

“It’s unfortunate for North Carolina voters,” says Stein of the Green Party. “They deserve more voices and more choices. That’s what voters are clamoring for.… By limiting people to the two corporate-sponsored parties that have created this mess really does a disservice.”

There have been efforts to change North Carolina’s law. In 2013, a bi-partisan bill that called for a study of the state’s election laws passed the House 109-5, only to die in a Senate committee.

An August survey by Public Policy Polling found that if Trump were to run as an independent, he’d capture 27 percent of the vote in a three-way race, essentially tying the Republican nominee for second place. Democrat Hillary Clinton would win with 38 percent of the vote in their hypothetical scenario.

This month, in a poll of Iowa voters, who kick off the presidential nominating contests on Feb. 1, PPP found that an independent Trump bid in the fall would catapult Clinton over either U.S. Sen. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida or U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, essentially flipping the state’s electoral votes from Republican to Democrat.

“Trump running as an independent could be pretty much fatal to Republican hopes of winning next fall,” PPP said in a statement.

Stein says whoever runs, it’s about giving voters a choice.

“In 2014,” she says, “it was almost two-thirds of voters who voted with their feet by staying home and not voting for Democrats or Republicans.”

This story was originally published January 1, 2016 at 5:24 PM with the headline "Why an independent bid by Trump would face a speed bump in N.C.."