Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are both bound for the floor. Here’s what it’ll do to the 2024 Republican primary.

Donald Trump has already been criminally indicted. He’s about to be indicted on even more serious charges. There’s a lot going wrong for him, to put it mildly. But the worst news Trump has received so far this year was when Ron DeSantis collapsed and lost about twenty points, and Trump gained zero of those points. Trump is still stuck at around 50-55% in primary polling. Once the severity of his legal peril becomes more obvious, his primary numbers will drop further.

Roughly half of 2024 Republican primary voters are already in the “anyone but Trump” category, and have shown they’re willing to rally around any other Republican candidate with momentum. Even with DeSantis collapsing and no one else viable currently in the field, those folks are shifting to “none of the above.” They’re that adamant about Trump not being the nominee, and they’re nearly half the Republican voting base. They’re desperate for someone else to come along. And before long, if only for the sake of ratings, the media will hand some new Republican candidate momentum.

We’ve already seen essentially half of Republican primary voters unite behind DeSantis, simply because the media told them to, and they only bailed on him once he got on the national stage and they saw he had zero resemblance to the guy the media had sold them on.

It’s just a matter of time before some fresh faced Republican enters the 2024 race without baggage or self destructive tendencies, and the media decides that person would be good for ratings, and hypes them to the point that they’re suddenly near 50% in Republican primary polling.

Right around the time Trump is being indicted by the DOJ, and viewers start seriously questioning why the media is still talking about this guy as if he’s a viable candidate, that’s when the media will likely decide to pick a new Republican candidate to hype for ratings. The media will still portray it as Trump still having 100% odds of being the nominee, with this new candidate also somehow having 70% odds of being the nominee.

Will audiences be thrown off by the media assigning 170% odds in the Republican primary race? Nah. Audiences bought it when the media was insisting that Trump had 100% odds and DeSantis had 70% odds. When the entire media repeats the same line all day every day, it starts to sound true.

Meanwhile back in the real world, once the next Republican primary candidate has momentum, and doesn’t pull a DeSantis, at a time when Trump is being indicted (again), that candidate will likely push Trump below 50% before primary voting even begins.

So at that point you’ll have a new Republican frontrunner before the end of 2023, Trump’s life will consist of little more than bail hearings, and then it’ll become a question of whether that new Republican frontrunner has peaked too early and gets bumped off by someone else after that.

This will all play out as the rotting ghost of Trump bitterly tries to use whatever little bandwidth he has left to destroy whoever the viable Republican candidates are at that point. And they’ll each have to try to walk a tightrope when it comes to answering the media’s endless questions about Trump’s espionage trial.

This would be the point where DeSantis would be able to try to climb back into contention, but only if he’s willing to stay out of the headlines for the next several months and let the nation forget why they currently think he’s a joke. So far he’s doing the opposite of that, and seems intent on making sure everyone thinks of him as a punchline permanently.

The reality is that neither Trump nor DeSantis will likely be viable by the time the 2024 race truly gets underway. I said this two years ago, and – yes I’ll toot my own horn on this – it’s now starting to play out like I said it would, for the reasons I said it would. Trump has a low ceiling that’ll only get lower from here, and DeSantis is on the floor.

This means the single biggest threat we’re facing in 2024 is that the Republican presidential nominee will likely be someone whose name isn’t even in the conversation right now, and who turns out to be just as awful as Trump or DeSantis, but without the baggage – and without the proper vetting.

Who will that person be? Who knows? It won’t be any of the names currently being mentioned. And at this point it doesn’t really matter who it’s going to be. It’ll be whoever the media decides to hype for ratings when the time comes. Don’t waste your time trying to guess who. Just be vigilant about this upcoming moment, where the media finally admits Trump and DeSantis are both goners and starts hyping someone else instead, so you can spot it when it starts to happen.

When some conservative CEO or right wing actor or obscure yet charismatic House Republican starts to get media hype and climbs in primary polling, that’s when we’ll need to act. That person will just be Trump without the hair. And we’ll need to make sure everyone knows it, because the (entire) media will try to portray that person a “breath of fresh air” with no scandals whatsoever!

I issued this same warning two years ago, but even many of the people who think highly of my analysis seemed to think I was wrong about this one. I’m only pointing out I was right about the downfall of Trump and DeSantis, in the hope you’ll now take me seriously about the fact that the real 2024 Republican nominee is likely to try to sneak up on us.

And again, there is no point in trying to guess who it’s going to be. If you’re guessing names, you’re 100% missing the point. For one thing, it’s not going to be any of those known punchlines like Pence or Haley or Christie. It’s likely to be someone from way outside the fray. Someone we couldn’t name right now if we were given a hundred guesses. The point is not to guess the name. The point is to keep our eyes open, so that once the media picks its designated ratings-friendly 2024 Republican nominee, we can spot what’s happening and start pushing back accordingly. The identity of that person does not matter. What matters is keeping your eyes open for when the time comes.