Former Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah ruled out an independent candidacy on Saturday during a campaign stop in Concord, New
Hampshire.
“I’m running as a Republican, proudly so,” Huntsman told CNN during an appearance at a local gun show. “And I think we will get a lot of independent votes, no doubt about that.”
Huntsman’s statement ends recent media speculation that the former governor and ex-ambassador to China might bolt the GOP and mount an independent bid for the presidency reminiscent of the kind of campaign waged by moderate Republican John B. Anderson of Illinois in 1980.
Anderson, a ten-term congressman from Rockford, Illinois, polled 5.7 million votes, or nearly seven percent of the total, as an independent candidate against President Jimmy Carter and Republican challenger Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election.
A New York Times analysis earlier this summer suggested that Huntsman, who’s been struggling to gain traction in the increasingly conservative and congested Republican field, might fare better as an independent candidate in the general election.
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