A small influential group of conservative leaders are calling for a third-party option to spare voters a straining general election choice between a Republican they consider completely obnoxious and Hillary Clinton.

There had been widespread discussion of seeking out “a conservative independent or third-party candidate.” Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts said that they would not vote for Mr. Trump in November. He has separated voters from several factions of the party. The mainstream Christian activists view his angry outlook as antithetical to their faith; centrists, see him as the most disruptive politician in a generation.

The national security experts believe he should not be allowed to control nuclear weapons. Defections of any sort could prove lethal to Mr. Trump. He’s already trailing Mrs. Clinton in general election polls, and the polling already shows a possibility of mass desertions from the party. To which in a news conference on Tuesday night, Mr. Trump canned the idea of a scalawag Republican ticket: “They’ll just lose everything, and that would be the work of a loser.”

An Opinion Research survey this week showed that 48 percent of Republicans who do not support Mr. Trump said they would definitely not support him in November. But even though the Republican leaders have criticized Mr. Trump in increasingly for his forceful terms; some of them have suggested they would reject him. Mr. Rubio is the closest contender, describing Mr. Trump as a fraudster whom the party cannot afford to embrace.

Max Boot, a foreign policy adviser to Senator Marco Rubio, said that if they struggled to block Mr. Trump, he would vote against a Republican nominee for the first time in his life. “There is no way in hell I would ever vote for him. I would far more readily support Hillary Clinton”, he added.

For many, his refusal to reject an endorsement from David Duke, the white supremacist, was the breaking point. “Let me make it perfectly clear, Senate Republicans condemn David Duke and the K.K.K., and his racism,” said the Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader. “That is not the view of Republicans that have been elected to the United States Senate, and I condemn his comments in the most forceful way.”

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, reacted to Donald J. Trump’s muted response to David Duke by saying Senate Republicans condemns white supremacists. “If a person wants to be the nominee of the Republican Party, there can be no evasion and no games,”

Speaker Paul D. Ryan told reporters in Washington after his meeting with the House Republicans. “This is fundamental”, he said “And if someone wants to be our nominee, they must understand this. I hope this is the last time I need to speak out on this race.” “They must reject any group or cause that is built on bigotry. This party does not prey on people’s prejudices. We appeal to their highest ideals. This is the party of Lincoln.” He, did not mention Mr. Trump by name though, brought into sharp relief the intense struggle facing congressional Republicans ,as they move to consecutively run from Mr. Trump’s positions and proclaim fealty to his increasingly possibility to reach the top. “Any Republican nominee is going to have a better Supreme Court nominee,” said Senator Cory Gardner, Republican of Colorado, after he said his first job was to show America that “Trump is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It’s not going to be Donald Trump.”

In all of the states, Mr. Trump won with voters who support his ability to “tell it like it is” and want the next president to be from outside the political establishment.

Even though he had a clear win on Super Tuesday, leaving his contenders behind in the race. Mr. Trump has constantly involved policies and political figures disliked by his party. He once said that Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, whose policies fueled the recession during President Ronald Reagan’s first term, he was a great pick for the nation’s central bank job. “He’s a good businessman. We will have to work on changing some of his ideas,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch smiling weakly.  “For a group with 9 percent favorable telling people how to vote,” said Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, “I don’t think that’s going to work.”

Many Republicans will actually consider voting for a Democrat, rather than just staying home. A conservative columnist wrote: “I voted for a Republican congressional candidate who was later convicted of using taxpayer money to buy sex toys. I voted for a Republican congressman who was on his deathbed. I voted for W even though I was mad at him over the Iraq war. I voted for McCain even though I thought his health-care and cap-and-trade plans would be disastrous. I voted for Romney even though I disliked his Mormonism and his creation of Romneycare. But I can’t bring myself to vote for Trump.” Another when asked said that they  don’t think they could ever vote for Hillary Clinton, but given a choice between her and Donald Trump as a president, they would much rather see Clinton. And even though she is consider as extremely unprincipled.” An ex- service man commented, “It may be true that the country I love and fought for has gone over the cliff and is willing to elect a narcissistic con-man as president, but I will never, under any circumstances, put my name to its death warrant.”

Few of the prejudices put forth by Trump, that has caused this animosity are listed below:

  • Being wealthy makes one morally superior.
  • Material wealth is what measures a man’s true worth.
  • Boasting about sexual conquests is something to be admired or cheered.
  • Every challenge should be met not with a sound argument about the ideas, but with insults, abuses and should be put down about the person expressing the disagreement.
  • Legitimate challenges to your ideas should be met with threats of financial ruin or lawsuits.
  • The force of government should be exerted by the wealthy against the weak.
  • That your failures must always be attributed not to your lack of intelligence or initiative, but to someone else getting something that’s rightfully yours.”

There is no obvious alternative on the right to Mr. Trump, but Republicans believe that an existing minor party, like the Libertarian Party or the Constitution Party, could serve as a viable vehicle, allowing the disappointed Republicans to show up on Election Day despite their aversion to him. There is precedent for Republican Party leaders rejecting a dangerous nominee, though never thought of at the presidential level.

But the problem is that if Trump wins, he’s made it very clear that he doesn’t care about the constitutional constraints on the president, or on government generally. His ignorance of our Constitution and his macho approach to governance would make Trump’s election a political catastrophe. For this reason, millions of patriotic Americans who would ordinarily vote GOP, including most conservatives and all constitutionalists, will not vote for him. Here is where a new third party comes as a lifeboat for anyone aboard the sinking GOP ship.