Whoever runs against Trump will be a sacrificial goat to the point of have a ZERO future in National Politics .
Dems will drop back to saving the doomed party and to gaining positions at the State level like they are doing in Virginia.
That's very much the issue - Butti would make a terrible Presidential candidate due to age alone, much less track record or his sexuality, (the latter being a plus in the more progressive circles in the party but not in the public at large.) He'd make an ideal Vice Presidential candidate, though, but not if it costs him any chance of leveraging that into a Presidential candidacy later when he's made his bones in D.C. If he manages to garner enough delegates in the convention he can horse trade for that sort of promise even if the Dems lose in 2020, especially if he hands those delegates to the Clinton team for their own power brokerage at the convention. If he has the money to continue, he will.