Many sheep are awakening and slowly leaving the Dem Party, but they’re still too brainwashed to vote for Evil Orange Man. They need to be offered (for now) an alternative they can live with. DeSantis will be used for that purpose and the sheep will jump on his bandwagon and fully move away from the Dem Party. At the last minute DeSantis drops out of the running and all those (at least most) on his bandwagon will vote for Trump.