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How to get elected president with 5 electoral votes

if-gary-johnson-can-win-new-mexico-he-could-be-elected-presidentNate Silver’s “538” blog posits that Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson might win New Mexico, a state where he is a former governor, and polls show him in a fairly close three-way race with Trump and Clinton. So let’s say Johnson gets New Mexico’s 5 electoral votes, the also-rans split the remaining electoral votes evenly, 267 for Clinton and 266 for Trump (see map here and discussion here).

With no candidate having a majority of electoral votes, the election would then go to the House, where Republicans would choose the president because they control more state delegations (each state gets one vote). If House Republicans don’t like Trump, and many of them don’t, they could pick Johnson, a former Republican whose libertarian views closely align with theirs. And in the crazy political world of 2016, who can say they won’t?

Photo: Our next president?


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