“Let’s imagine a slightly different scenario in 2024,” Sracic said. “What if the candidates are Trump, Biden, and a third-party centrist, the kind of candidate your repairman was looking for.”

Assuming electoral results similar to 2020, the third-party candidate would only have to win a handful of states to throw the election into the House: Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New Jersey would do the trick, Sracic explained.

“Well, the 12th Amendment mandates that the House select from among the three top electoral vote winners and that the vote be taken by state,” he explained.

[Is this *possible*? Theoretically … yes. But the 12th Amendment scenario depends on an independent candidate winning enough electors to keep either party from getting to 270, when the last time an independent won ANY electors was 1968 (George Wallace, who won 46 but didn’t keep Richard Nixon from 270). At that point, House delegations comprised of Republicans and Democrats would have to vote against their own party’s nominees for president to install the ticket that likely came in a distant third in the popular vote. Color me skeptical, especially on that last step. — Ed]