There is no escaping the fact that Trump still owns the GOP. And if you look at it in terms of purely mercenary electoral realities- that’s good news for Biden.
Paul Campos at LGM sums it up:
Two things make this inevitable:
(1) A collective action problem: the only way any other candidate would have a shot at the nomination would be if the race for the GOP nomination featured only two candidates: Trump and Not Trump. That’s obviously not going to happen, or at least not until it’s far too late. The GOP primary structure is heavily weighted towards winner take all, which gives Trump a completely unstoppable advantage in a race with several candidates, since 35% to 40% of Republican primary voters are locked in for him from the jump.
(2) Trump would absolutely ensure that, if someone else were to get the nomination, that person would lose the general election. He’s making the party an offer it can’t refuse — not that it’s going to be necessary to put a horse’s head in anybody’s satin sheets, given that in every significant respect it’s still very much his party from top to bottom.
It’s going to be Biden against Trump, and whatever reservations one might have about another Biden term — mine are based solely on his age — could not possibly be less relevant in this context.
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