“Trump has an absolute viselike grip on the Republican electorate, and if he wants to be the Republican nominee in 2024, he will be,” said GOP strategist John Thomas. He said he had been helping to organize a political action committee to support a potential presidential bid by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis if Trump doesn’t run, but recently put those plans on pause…

“We definitely pumped the brakes,” after the FBI search, said Thomas, speaking of the preparations to support a DeSantis bid in 2024. He said he reasoned that Trump would seek reelection and that “at this point, it would be essentially a fool’s errand for DeSantis to attempt to run.” The Mar-a-Lago search, he added, “turned Trump into a victim” and fed the “us-versus-them psychology” that fires up Trump’s base…

Across the political spectrum Wednesday, many agreed that the one-of-a-kind result in Wyoming — the defeat by some 37 points of the daughter of a former vice president whose family has been dominant in state politics — signaled something broader about the direction of the GOP.

“It’s a clear indication that the American republic will only be preserved if principled Republicans, Democrats and independents put country over party and join to defend it,” said Evan McMullin, an independent U.S. Senate candidate in Utah, who local Democrats have endorsed as an anti-Trump candidate. “None of these factions have the necessary votes to do it alone.”