Democratic presidential contender Julián Castro said on Sunday the former Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz will give Donald Trump “his best hope of getting re-elected” if he chooses to launch an independent run for the White House.
Castro, a former San Antonio mayor and federal housing secretary under Barack Obama, is part of a growing field of declared candidates for the Democratic nomination.
Schulz is a long-term Democratic donor and has flirted with a run since stepping down from the coffee giant last year. He has reportedly hired experienced advisers and in an interview with CBS 60 Minutes to be broadcast on Sunday, he reportedly said that if he does jump into the race, it will be as an independent.
On Monday, he will release From the Ground Up, a autobiography subtitled: A Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America.
Interviewed on CNN’s State of the Union, Castro was asked about Schultz’s contention that Democrats and Republicans “are engaged, every single day, in revenge politics”, and are thus not acting in the interest of the American people.
He said he had “tremendous respect” for the businessman, based in part on encounters while he was in government.
“Obviously,” Castro said, “if he runs, it’s going to make an impression on the race. But … I have a concern that if he did run … essentially it would provide Donald Trump with his best hope of getting re-elected.”
Castro cited a recent poll which said Trump would not be able to beat any one of seven Democratic candidates to run against him.
“So his only hope,” he said, “if things stayed the same – and that’s a big if – is essentially to get somebody else, a third party, to siphon off those votes. And I don’t think that that would be in the best interest of our country. We need new leadership.
“And so, you know, I would suggest to Mr Schultz to truly think about the negative impact that that might make.”
The survey in question, from Public Policy Polling, showed Trump unable to gain more than 42% support in match-ups with Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand, who have all declared runs, and against Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Beto O’Rourke and Cory Booker, who have not formally pitched in.
Castro was not mentioned.
Schultz has long supported Democrats and Democratic causes but that has not shielded him from criticism within the party.
Tina Podlowski, the party chair in Schultz’s home state, Washington, told the Associated Press: “For somebody who is professing to be a lifelong Democrat, I think to be running as an independent in this particular cycle is not a wise thing to do.”
The former Barack Obama adviser David Axelrod tweeted that a possible Schultz run was “the only good news [Trump] received in an otherwise dismal week”. Another former Obama adviser, Dan Pfeiffer, said “this half-baked idea … will pose an existential threat to a Democrat in what will likely be 2020 race decided by a few votes in a handful of states”.
Recent presidential elections have been affected by strong showings from candidates outside the Democratic and Republican parties.
In 1992, the conservative Ross Perot siphoned votes from then president George HW Bush, who lost to Bill Clinton.
In 2000, Al Gore lost the race to succeed Clinton to Bush’s son, George W Bush, because – some say, though others say not – Green candidate Ralph Nader showed strongly in Florida.
In 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton despite losing the national popular vote by nearly 3m. Jill Stein, the Green candidate, and Gary Johnson, a Libertarian, attracted millions of supporters.
Trump won in the electoral college thanks to narrow victories in key northern and midwestern states. In Pennsylvania, for example, his margin of victory over Clinton was just over 44,000 votes. Just under 50,000 Pennsylvanians voted for Stein, and nearly 150,000 for Johnson.
