Matthew Continetti:
"One can’t help thinking, at this point in the cycle, the race for the presidency is remarkably static and fixed. An election with the potential to reshape American politics has drawn few polling leaders and opened no new battlegrounds. The stakes of the election expand while the presidential field, the number of swing states, and the pool of persuadable voters all contract. This should be the moment when our choices grow."
That's because the political "tilts" of nearly all the states is now fixed and predetermined.
California is going to vote blue.
New York is going to vote blue.
Illinois is going to vote blue.
etc.
Wyoming is going to vote red.
Iowa is going to vote red.
Texas is going to vote red.
etc.
The relatively few states that used to be "battlegrounds" are going to be focused upon by The Party, which will go full-tilt to maintain its "underground election apparatus" (which also includes "above-ground" components, such as mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting, and ranked-choice voting) -- thus making it possible to CONTROL future critical elections in those states.
The effect will be elections that may "appear close" (and perhaps they actually are), but "the winner" will be the apparatus, which controls the ballots [not cast, but] received, and the counting thereof.
Thus, it will make little difference as to who is actually running, because one no longer will need to be an effective candidate with the apparatus behind you.
And if you're on the other (Republican) side, it won't matter that much, either. Whether it be Mr. Trump or Nikki Haley.
Because, they're not running against "the other candidate".
They're running against "the machine".
And... like Dr. McCoy once said to Captain Kirk:
"It's a machine, Jim... you can't argue with a machine."