If all 68 percent of those "Trump or bust" likely Republican voters are telling the truth about sticking with him if he runs third-party, we're looking at something like 17-20 percent of the total vote next November going to Trump, way more than enough to wreck the GOP's chances. Even if half of them end up deciding to either stay home or vote for the Republican nominee in the interest of beating Hillary, that's still upwards of 10 percent breaking away.
There are X factors, though. One X factor is Trump's dynamism on the stump. If he campaigned aggressively as a third-party nominee, with the sort of frequent big rallies he's doing now, the contrast with Hillary's "low energy" campaign and whatever the GOP nominee is doing might drive extra votes to him. I wouldn't put it past him to get 25 percent, especially if he finally opens his wallet to buy ads and build a national organization.
But that'll be countered by another X factor: It's hard to predict how much free airtime the media will continue to give him during a general election. Letting him on the air to ramble for half an hour about barring Muslims is a perfectly sensible thing for MSNBC to do right now, when the GOP is at each other's throats. The more he talks, the more divided their enemy is.
If he went third-party, they'd have to think more carefully. I assume they'd double down early in the general election campaign by giving him a blank check to talk on the air about whatever he likes, hoping to drive attention away from the GOP nominee and towards Trump in the name of splitting the vote. If he really took off, though, and began to threaten Hillary, they'd cut him off.
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