Mitch said he'd support Trump if he was the GOP nominee. That's a lot of different than saying he is hoping he'd win the nomination.
Trump doesn't have massive support. There aren't many plausible candidates with a worse net approval rating. He does have a strong majority of support among GOP voters though.
The old guard GOP can't be happy at the prospect of having Trump as nominee. He really has no path to winning unless a lot changes between now and then.
The Virginia GOP has fought with this scenario for a decade now. GOP voters keep picking Tea Party or Trumpster crazies for state-wide elections and have completely lost a state they used to be competitive in. The party is trying to change that this year to prevent the craziest yet (Amanda Chase) from winning by ditching the primary. But due to state COVID rules, they stuck themselves with drive-in convention at Liberty University. So we'll see what that produces!
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