Dick's Sporting Goods CEO who led the chain in ending assault rifle sales and destroying $5 million in guns is reportedly testing the idea of a presidential run

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• Dick's Sporting Goods CEO Ed Stack is reportedly testing the idea of running as a third-party candidate in the 2020 presidential election.
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• According to a new report from Politico, a focus group in Wisconsin was shown videos with Stack messaging and asked whether they would consider voting for a third-party candidate.
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• A spokesperson for Dick's did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment. A source close to Stack told Politico that he has "no plans to run for any elected office."
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• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The CEO of Dick's Sporting Goods is reportedly testing the idea of running as a third-party candidate in the 2020 presidential election.

According to a new report from Politico, Dicks CEO Ed Stack has been doing a bit of research around whether a campaign could be successful, floating the idea to a focus group in Wisconsin.

Politico's Natasha Korecki wrote that "various messages were presented to a focus group in southern Wisconsin this week centering on the billionaire businessman, along with possible three-way match-ups against Donald Trump and Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren."

A source who took part in the focus group told Politico that they were shown videos that included messaging from Stack and other current presidential candidates and asked whether they would consider voting for a third-party candidate.

One of the themes raised was how Stack made the move to stop selling assault weapons in Dick's stores. Assault weapons were banned from Dick's big-box stores in 2012 and in all of its locations in 2018, in the wake of the Parkland shooting. The company then destroyed the $5 million worth of guns that it pulled.

In a recent interview with Business Insider, Stack discussed the company's decision to stop selling assault weapons and the impact that it had on the business.

"I said, 'The only thing we can do with them is destroy them,'" he told Business Insider's Aine Cain and Richard Feloni. "So that's what we did. We destroyed them all."

He called out Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the interview, saying that he wished McConnell had the "guts" to bring a gun reform bill to the Senate for a vote.

A spokesperson for Dick's did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment on the Politico report. A source close to Stack told Politico that he has "no plans to run for any elected office."