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 Asked during Tuesday night's CNN debate in Las Vegas if he was
ready to reassure Republicans that he would not break his pledge to
the Republican National Committee and launch a third-party
candidacy, he said, "I really am. I'll be honest, I really am."
Trump has warned that he could renege on the promise if he felt the
party's leadership had treated him unfairly. He raised eyebrows last
week when he tweeted that 68 percent of his supporters would back
him if he ran as an independent, according to a recent opinion poll.
Party strategists fear that such a maneuver would split the
Republican vote in November and effectively guarantee that the
Democratic nominee wins.
But the real estate mogul doubled down on his promise on CNN
following the debate, plugging his status as the longtime front
runner.
 "Number one, I'm in first place. Not by a little bit, by a lot," he
said, calling himself the party's fair-haired boy.
"When they asked it, I did not hesitate. I decided to just say yes,
I'm a Republican. And I'm going to be a Republican; I'm not going to
be doing a third-party" run.
And despite his prior complaints that party leaders do not treat him
fairly, he said during the debate that he has great respect for the
people he has met during the campaign, including his competitors and
the party's leaders.
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Last week, the Washington Post reported that party leaders met to
game out scenarios for a brokered convention in Cleveland in July in
the event that no candidate wins the required number of delegates to
clinch the nomination. Trump told the newspaper he was concerned
that he would be at a disadvantage if a contested convention
materialized.
The report also caused retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to suggest
that he too would consider leaving the party and making an
independent run. But Carson followed Trump's lead in the debate,
saying Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus had
assured him the party would not try to thwart the process.
(Reporting by Erin McPike; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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