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It would be ridiculous for Republicans to not expect primary shenanigans: in 2024, I expect vast swath of Democrats to coordinate in reregistering as Republicans and voting with Never-Trumpers for a particular non-Trump candidate in every state, or at least states which are key electoral states for the primary vote. Obviously, then, Democrats would gladly switch back to their own candidate for the general election. (Rush Limbaugh coordinated Republicans doing this in 2008, Operation Chaos, to force the Democrat superdelegates to pick between the first Black President and the first woman President).
What are ways that the Trump contingent could bring such a conspiracy to light without sounding like schizophrenic conspiracy theorists? And then how to combat such a scenario at the polls effectively?
It almost feels like you're laying the groundwork to cope with a Trump loss in the 2024 GOP primary. The Democrats would much rather run against Trump in 2024 than against DeSantis. Trump largely failed to advance his agenda in four years, he antagonized the Democrats into increased turnout, he offended everyone in the middle by trying to steal the 2020 election, and (crucially) he already demonstrated that Biden can beat him. DeSantis turned a swing state blood red, won it by twenty points in a cycle where Trump's nominees were failing left and right, demonstrated competent governance against COVID and hurricane disasters, and successfully prosecuted the culture war using the levers of executive power.
If you want further evidence that the Dems would rather run against Trump, look to their shenanigans in the 2020 cycle. They were supporting Trump's own nominees and fellow election denialists over more traditional GOP politicians. And it worked; Trump's guys generally lost.
I honestly think that Trump's running makes the 2024 cycle bad for Republicans regardless of the outcome. If Trump had stepped aside and let DeSantis (or anyone else, really) step into the spotlight it would have, at worst, made things like 2016 with 67 candidates on the debate stage, all angling to take out Joe Biden or whoever his handpicked successor is. As it stands now, the possibilities aren't good. First, while I don't think it's likely, Trump could take the nomination unopposed. This just makes it look like the GOP is doubling down on Trump and MAGA and, in light of the recent midterm fiasco, this doesn't look like a winning strategy. It doesn't help that the official platform is still whatever Trump wants it to be, and I doubt they'd be able to change it into something substantive at the convention without significant pushback from the man himself. Hell, if Trump can still get the GOP to kowtow to him after this it's only going to make him more cocky about his grip on the party, which will drive away even more voters. This isn't desirable.
The second possibility is that Trump wins the nomination despite a serious challenge from DeSantis (or someone else). At this point, it no longer looks like the party is kowtowing to Trump, but that isn't necessarily a better look—if even a guy like DeSantis who has been proclaimed by the media and all the smart money as the genius who will lead the Republican party into a new era can't win the nomination from Trump then it proves that it's still Trump's party in a much more salient way than simply handing him the nomination does, and it's likely to have the additional downside of driving away crestfallen DeSantis partisans who pinned their hopes on his winning the nomination.
The final possibility is that someone like DeSantis actually wins the nomination from Trump. This seems like the best scenario, and, indeed, probably is the best scenario, but it's still not really a good scenario. Sure, the party will have shown that it has moved on from Trump. The problem is that there are still a lot of Trump partisans out there; if there weren't, we wouldn't be talking about the possibility of Trump winning a competitive nomination. DeSantis has been holding his tongue about Trump for the past 2 years but once he's in a competitive race Trump will eat him alive if he doesn't fight back. If he's going to go after Trump he actually has to go after Trump without worrying about offending his (Trump's) base. And the obvious effect of this fight is that it's going to piss off a lot of Trump supporters and, nationwide, there seem to be a lot more Trump supporters at present than there are DeSantis supporters. In certain areas I see near-Eucharistic levels of devotion to Trump, and I doubt that these people will turn out for DeSantis in the kind of numbers he needs to win a national election after months of him badmouthing Trump and Trump badmouthing him. And I highly doubt Trump will graciously concede and give a speech supporting DeSantis at the convention. Trump will not go away peacefully.
As a sort of aside, I think that the main battle line of this nomination is going to be the 2020 election. As a state government official whose election practices weren't questioned by anybody, he's had the luxury of being able to stay relatively mum on the subject. Sure, he can spout generalities about election security and such, but he can easily dodge questions about whether he actually thinks the election was stolen. In a primary battle he no longer has this luxury. Trump is bound to spend countless hours bemoaning the theft of the 2020 election, and such bemoaning is really off putting to anyone who isn't already on the Trump Train. If DeSantis agrees, or even equivocates on this (i.e. saying that certain things were suspicious) then he's completely sunk himself in the general election. At that point he's just another MAGA election denier regardless of what his other positions are. If he pushes back and affirmatively states that Joe Biden was legitimately elected president, then he's completely alienated himself from the MAGA faithful. This is more detrimental than most people realize—for what it's worth, the DeSantis supporters I know IRL aren't moderates but Trump supporters who think the election was stolen but happen to like DeSantis better and, more importantly, think he has a better chance of winning the general. Whether or not these people would continue to support him if he pivots hard anti-MAGA remains to be seen, and even if the hardcore MAGA-types don't represent a majority of GOP primary voters, their lack of participation could be enough to cost DeSantis in the general. It's worth remembering that Trump's rise was largely based on attracting the kind of non-voter who was looking for someone far outside the political mainstream, and it isn't clear whether these people will turn out to support a normal, boring Republican.
This changed my thinking quite a bit, to DeSantis not running. If DeSantis can't win without Trump supporters backing him, he has no reason to run this cycle. If he badly loses the general due to Trumpers staying home after a bloody primary (and Trump almost certainly not endorsing him after the nomination loss), he's kaput. DeSantis is only 44, though the Florida governorship is only two terms and I doubt he could ride the "Trump but effectual" train for another six years to office.
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