No, a Vote for a Third Party (or Abstaining from Voting) Is not the Same as a Vote for Hillary
Yes, it is. It is naive to think otherwise. Just look at the 1992 election cycle.
Bill Clinton got 44,909,806 popular votes.
George H.W. Bush got 39,104,550 popular votes.
Ross Perot got 19,743,821 popular votes.
Do the math! Perot was to the right of Bush. Had he dropped out, if only half of his supporters had voted for bush, and the rest abstained from voting for anyone, Bush would have garnered 50 million votes and been the President for 4 more years.
What is certain is that all the polling showed that Perot only took votes from Bush. None of them told the exit pollsters they would have voted for Clinton if Perot dropped out.
We have the same thing today. None of the Cruz supports will vote for Hilary. But if they vote for anyone other than Trump (holding their nose as they do so), or abstain, Hilary will be the next President, will appoint 5 new Supreme Court Justices, and change the character of our once great nation in far more significant ways than Obama even though of doing.
Time to wake up and smell the coffee! Trump would have been my last choice from among the Republican candidates, but he is now the presumptive GOP nominee. Either get behind him or surrender the country to Hilary.