Did winnowing work?
There are a lot of arguments about whether the current nomination system that we have — influential early contests and the "invisible primary", where fundraising, polls and endorsements show which candidates have support — is effective. There's an argument that this system is effective at "winnowing" candidates who aren't able to unite the party behind them. But in the case of DeSantis dropping out on Sunday — unusual timing — it's not clear that this was especially effective winnowing. From a candidate perspective, maybe. DeSantis lost support as Trump gained it, and he didn't seem to especially strike people as an ascendant presidential figure.
DeSantis's departure from the race was good for consolidating the party around Trump at this stage, which is usually what parties want. But Trump is a complicated figure, and even as the GOP is increasingly his party, it's not totally straightforward. If your takeaway from the Iowa caucuses was that about 40 percent of caucusgoers preferred someone else, then it makes sense that a real contest between Trump and a competitor might have been good to have. Now the Haley campaign is trying to talk about a head-to-head contest. It's hard to know what a two-person race between Haley and Trump would have been like, and pretty difficult to imagine that Haley would be beating Trump now. But competition between Trump and an alternative might have been clearer if it had been a two-person race for longer.
—Julia Azari, 538 contributor
