With how the entire GOP’s future hinges upon the day-to-day mental state and ongoing legal circus of a singular deranged criminal, anything is possible, especially with more than a year to go.

I fully agree that DeSantis is unlikely to overtake Trump as the popular nominee (and probably not even as the establishment GOP’s choice given his sinking popularity, as you noted). That said, there very well could be some groundbreaking developments in the GOP race if Trump is actually somehow held criminally liable in a meaningful way, or if something from his upcoming trials is somehow enough to actually disgust his base (extremely unlikely but possible).

So even though DeSantis is comparatively weaker, Trump and his whole situation is just too volatile for us to have anything beyond conditionally informed guesses about what will happen. I find the jackals cannibalizing each other hilarious, but we have to be prepared for any possible outcome from the melee.