After weeks of coaxing and cajoling, billionaire businessman Donald Trump has finally signed a formal pledge of loyalty to the Republican Party that effectively rules out a third-party or independent presidential bid on his part in case someone else lands the Grand Old Party’s nomination.
“The best way for the Republicans to win is if I win the nomination and go directly against whoever they (the Democrats) happen to put up. And for that reason, I have signed the pledge,” Trump told reporters on Thursday.
Holding up the pledge, he declared: “So I will be totally pledging my allegiance to the Republican Party and for the conservative principles for which it stands. We will go out and fight hard, and we will win.”
Trump, surging in polls right from mid-June when he plunged into the race, had been holding out on the pledge issue. In the first Republican presidential debate last month, he defiantly stated that he would keep his options open, just in case he did not get “fair treatment” from the party.
Although the pledge that he has now signed says that he “will endorse the 2016 Republican presidential nominee regardless of who it is” and “will not seek to run as an independent or write-in candidate”, doubts still persist on what Trump may choose to do if he fails to win the Republican nomination.
But there is nothing legally binding about the much-touted pledge, commentators of every hue said on television shows.
Some felt Trump may have upstaged the Republican Party establishment.