What are the odds that Donald Trump is the Republican candidate for president in 2024?

In the thread below, people kicked around the question of how likely it is that Trump will be the GOP presidential candidate two years from now. For example commenter James Shearer pointed out that the current odds given by various bookmakers for this happening are around 40%.

Now these aren’t very active betting markets — another complication is that it’s unclear whether those odds include the house margin, which if they do means that the implied odds of Trump winning per these markets are more like 35% — plus obviously this is all highly speculative by nature.

Nevertheless, those odds seem to me to be radically too low.

Let’s break this down.

(1) What are the odds that, if Trump runs, he won’t get the nomination? I really can’t imagine how they could be higher than 10%. The only way to run for the GOP nomination and win right now is to seize the mantle of Trumpism, which is what the most obvious pretender to the crown, Ron DeSantis, has been doing vigorously with both hands. But trying to become the heir to Trumpism surely requires the need for an heir, which in turn requires Trump to be gone. As for the idea that some Republican can win the nomination by repudiating Trumpism, that might actually be too dumb of a thesis for a Maureen Dowd column, so we can calculate the odds of that as approximately zero.

(2) What are the odds that Trump won’t be able to run, because he’s dead, or too severely disabled/impaired to get the nomination, or in prison, assuming the latter state would keep him from getting the nomination, which is a real stretch anyway? These odds might be slightly higher than the odds of (1), but they’re still very long. Trump is 75. In terms of longevity he has bad health habits but great genes; the latter are far more important than the former, for actuarial purposes. As for his cognitive decline becoming so bad that he can’t get the nomination, forget it Jake, it’s Trumptown. Plus at this point it’s obvious he’s not going to be prosecuted by either the feds or any state, because that would be Too Divisive.

Basically, I’m back of the enveloping the odds of (1) as 5% and those of (2) as 10%

(3) What are the odds that Trump simply chooses not to run? To get down to odds of 40% for him to win the nomination, you have to assume there’s a 47% chance that he chooses to run, assuming the estimates of (1) and (2) above are accurate. That strikes me as a wild underestimate.

I think the odds at this point that he chooses to run are more like 90%, which gives us a 77% chance that he’ll be the nominee, again assuming the odds given for (1) and (2) above.

BTW I just noticed that literally the same day I predicted that Trump had a real good shot at winning the GOP nomination, and therefore the presidency, CNN published a piece that estimated the odds of the former thing happening as being 1%.

I’m pretty sure the moral here is that you don’t count your money when you’re sitting at the table.