You may remember I wrote several days ago, or maybe it was weeks, that for a non-Trump candidate to win the GOP nomination he has to thread the needle. He needs to praise Trump policies while criticizing the Trump demeanor, his chaotic personnel appointments, and his inability to get things done through the bureaucracy that, like it or hate it, is here to stay. I concluded it may not be possible.
Not to mention that if such a person won the nomination by defeating Trump, he (or she) still needs the votes of Trump loyalists to win the general election. Will Trump loyalists boycott the election or cast a third party protest vote? Which is to say, are they Republicans first, or Trumpists first? Will they man up and vote for whoever the party nominates, or will they say a pox on both houses and stay home?
The Washington Examiner’s Byron York covers this ground and reaches the same conclusion I did.
In the absence of some really big, game-changing event, beating Trump in a Republican presidential primary race is a very, very tall order. It is not impossible — it's far too early to make any such pronouncements — but there's no proof it can be done, either.
And that is just the primary, which if won, leaves the candidate to face the next hurdle. I think there is a greater-than-zero probability that DeSantis chooses to not run until 2028.
