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CHOO CHOO! TRUMP TRAIN CRUSHING THE "COMPETION"!
(hexbear.net)
I love the current convention where news sources show little pol heads. It makes American politics that much more absurd.
I think there are some players who might be running for "plan B".
If Trump dies, or the legal trouble gets bad enough (i. e. the "we can't put him on the ballot for insurrection reasons/being imprisoned/etc" cases take too many electoral votes off the table), the GOP may have to find someone else to avoid suicide. The campaign would be doomed from day 1, but I suspect running without a presidential candidate in a given state is an easy way to clobber Senate/House/state/local turnout.
DeSantis rode the "I'm almost as Trumpy" dragon, but would it be enough?
Before he bailed, I gave Mike Pence good odds in that scenario: hardcore social conservative cred, explicit break from the election denialism, but more a product of the party itself, so he could draw support from the low-level people who hoped to be career Republican politicians.
Maybe this could be the consolation prize for McCarthy? He spent a few months being a human shield for the zaniest of the GOP, so the party owes him something.
Your calipers are waaaaay off if you think Mike Pence had even a snowballs chance in hell of becoming president. He is probably one of the most actively disliked conservative politicians by conservatives outside of moderates who, incorrectly, see him as a lesser evil to Trump. The activist side though, who are the major drivers of the media consumption, think of Pence as a literal traitor.
Pence was more likely to be assassinated by some lunatic than become president.
Not winning. Just getting the nomination in a hypothetical no-Trump scenario.
Even winning the nomination wasn't in spitting distance for Pence for the exact same reasons.