Imagine a world in which trump is not in the race. He is legally barred from running.
I tried out other options like, is in federal prison, has a brain-damaging stroke that removes his power of speech, kills and eats a baby on television … but not one of these would prevent millions of people from voting for him. Only being legally barred from being on any ballot and from any write-in votes for him being counted would work.
So that is the scenario. Would any Republican become a relevant leader? I can’t think of anyone who could get close to 50% of the whole electoral vote. My guess is that rather than vote for someone who is not a charismatic fascistic psychopath , trump’s base would mostly just not go to the polls. The more loosely bound conservative and libertarian Republicans and Independents would split their votes among five or six candidates, and Biden would win easily.
Can Trump still endorse someone in your scenario? In that case, whoever gets the backing and good words of Off-Whitey Bulger (joke stolen from Jimmy Kimmel). If he’s also gagged from political speech somehow-then I think Nikki Haley, just because she seems the most mature of the current litter.
I kind of feel like there’d be a primary-season confused melee, and whoever prevailed probably wouldn’t really have much of a mandate, outside of opposing the Democrats. This wouldn’t really resonate nearly so well with the undecided and the under-motivated, so many of them would either vote Democrat or stay home.
But the party faithful would still come out in large numbers to vote for whoever has that “R” after their name, regardless of how odious, ineffectual, mouthbreathing, etc… that person may be. I think we’d be back to pre-2016 style elections at that point, and would stay there for the near future. Trump is something of an anomaly, essentially being an old-style populist demagogue, not a normal 20th/21st century politician.
trump’s backing hasn’t counted for much in other elections. It definitely helps more than when trump openly bashes a candidate, but not as much as one might expect. trumpsters seem to only like their OG moron, and consider candidates endorsed by trump to be pale (heh) imitations.
I also think ^this^ in a trumpless election, because she does seem to be the only adult in the room compared to the other Repub candidates, plus she’s not openly bashing trump, she’s running a ‘trump lite’ campaign-- I’ve heard it said she’s really running for Vice President.
Nuke him from orbit that’s the only way to be sure…
The only scenario that I see where Trump is not getting write in votes and splitting the GOP is if he is stone cold dead. Even then there is going to be a contingent of Republicans who are going to assume that like JFK jr. he faked his death to lull the opposition into complacency, and will for a gloriously return to wreck vengeance on the liberals and resume his rightful place as god emperor.
The power vacuum left by Trump is going to lead to further splintering of the GOP, with wild accusations of fraud in the primary, and conspiracy theories about which candidate might have done Trump in. The GOP convention ends in a free for all, and Biden shuffles off to victory.
I don’t think anyone else would be able to motivate the MAGA crowd who have allegiance to him above all others. Presumably Donnie wraps up the nomination before being convicted. So the RNC would have to choose between putting a convicted felon on the ballot or running someone else which would piss off MAGA world to the point where they wouldn’t vote. I can’t see them running DeSantis after all the shit thrown his way but I can’t see them nominating a black, a woman, or an Asian either. That leaves Christie, who MAGA hates even more. Could this be the break that Asa Hutchinson has been waiting for?
Depending on when the disqualification happened, I think that dozens of Republicans would get in the race. At the least we would see Cruz, Rubio and Paul back at it, along with probably 4 or 5 governors (God would most assuredly tell at least one Huckabee to run). Don Jr. would throw his hat in the ring, because they have to keep the grift going somehow. From day 1 I think he would have a more realistic chance of winning the nomination than almost anyone currently running apart from DeSantis and Haley.
As others have said, there’s a difference between trump is eliminated before or after the nomination and also a difference if he’s alive or dead.
If trump is alive but unnominated and so not on the ballot he will be the write-in favorite of R-leaning voters and it doesn’t matter who the Rs run, that person will come second to trump and both will come second to Biden. So Biden wins.
If trump is alive but nominated and on the ballot and also ineligible to serve he will still be the favorite of R-leaning voters. Any effort to coalesce the R vote towards a single write-in replacement will fail and Biden will still get the most votes, trump second, and the various R losers will spead the rest of the votes between themselves. So Biden wins.
If trump is dead, the MAGAts stay home, and Biden comes first whether the non-MAGAts can coalesce behind a single champion or not. So Biden wins.
The punchline being that the path to certain D victory runs through preventing trump from being eligible to serve. Fortunately that’s both doable and totally the legally justified thing given his many criminal and traitorous actions before, during, and after his time in the Presidency.
Assuming we’re not making this retroactive (which would be a very, very different scenario) - I think that the field would quickly reduce to two candidates. A quasi-Trump candidate, who runs on the hatred of Trans / “Illegals” / Democrats / Others, and a “Mainstream” Trumplican with putting America first, Strong Military, Economic Focus with a secondary focus on the hate. Note, I do not think in this cycle the hate could be eliminated, just not the main focus.
For the first, despite their utter lack of charisma, I think DeSantis would grab hold, just for lack of a better candidate with a better record with his bussing efforts, anti-Trans efforts, etc.
For the second, based on how things stand right now 2023NOV8 I’m guessing it would be Nikki Haley, but as others have stated, if Trump was ineligible RIGHT NOW (say a massive stroke leaving him a paralyzed, drooling and non-functional in any way obvious to even the most casual review) a bunch of other names would jump in, possibly including RFK Jr showing their true colors and running as (R).
If/WHEN someone else is on the ticket, I predict that even if Trump is 6 feet under somewhere, he will get enough write-ins to split the ticket, and eradicate any chance of a Republican victory.