Unpopular take; Trump is still a stronger R nominee than DeSantis

[Agafin]

There is one point which keeps being thrown out by a lot of people despite being thoroughly discredited during this past election. And that is the argument that Trump attacking a candidate and telling his voters (directly or indirectly) to vote against said candidate will negatively affect them in a general election. It will not, unless they previously based their entire campaign on being a trumpster. People have agency in who they vote for (obviously things are different in primaries).

Had Trump started attacking people like Lake, Mastriano or Walker, it would've buried them because they are nothing without him (though also hurting his credibility if those attacks were unprompted). But for someone like say, Lombardo or Youngkin who actually ran on issues dear to their states, it would've meant nothing. Hell, I'd say Trump attacking Kemp was in hindsight the biggest gift to his campaign once the primary was over. It allowed him to get a lot of anti-Trump moderates and independents while retaining pretty much all of the base because they'd still rather have him than Abrams. I mean, think about it, what possible explanation could there be for Georgia governor being almost exactly the same as 2014 despite 8 years of blue shift in the state and a much less favorable national performance (for Rs)?

So yeah, I believe that, where Desantis to actually win the nomination, then the only way for Trump to actually negatively affect him would be running as a third party in a bunch of key states. But you can bet that in that scenario, the republican party would do everything to destroy Trump behind scenes (including blackmail since they are the only thing preventing democrats from sending his ass to prison and Trump knows it).

Trump could spend the entirety of 2024 attacking nominee Desantis and not only would it not hurt him, it might actually help him. Anti-Trump republicans might not be that numerous but they could be the difference between winning and losing Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona in 2024 .