WASHINGTON—Reflecting widespread dissatisfaction with the two major parties’ presumptive nominees for president, a Gallup poll released Monday found that a sizable segment of the U.S. electorate would strongly consider supporting an equally unlikable third-party candidate in the general election. “If presented with an equivalently unpleasant and grating alternative to the current frontrunners, it appears that as many as half of all registered voters would be open to casting their ballot for such a detestable outsider,” said Gallup spokesman Harold Ripley, adding that nearly 18 percent of respondents stated definitively that they would support a candidate unaffiliated with either the Republican or Democratic party whose name and face, every time they see it, would similarly cause them to wince in disgust and grow infuriated. “Even this late in the race, it seems there’s still a viable path to the White House for someone—beyond the mainstream parties’ likely nominees—for whom the prospect of seeing them at work in the Oval Office just kind of makes you sick to your stomach.” The poll also revealed that about one in eight U.S. voters would readily back a presidential candidate who was significantly more vile and loathsome than either of the current options.

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