It would likely have a larger impact on the primaries than the general election. Primary elections are full of strategizing about how to pick a set of issues that will resonate with a large enough fraction of the electorate to be competitive, but which don't have other candidates campaigning on similar issues.

Too many candidates running on a similar set of issues will split the vote and will lose against a less popular candidate running alone on a different set of issues. So they end up needing to consolidate (which can involve some wheeling and dealing like promising that the candidate who steps down will get a position in the remaining candidate's administration).

This is essentially what happened in the 2016 Republican primaries. The more moderate candidates never consolidated and so split the vote among themselves. By the time they had seen the writing on the wall and dropped out, Trump had built up a large enough margin that the only remaining candidate (Cruz) had no chance at catching up.

RCV will likely prevent a similar outcome in the future. But a further consequence is that candidates will have less incentive to drop out early in the primaries. So if RCV were instituted nationwide I would expect the primary season to be longer, messier, and much more crowded.

The problem in primaries is that it's the fringe of the fringe who select candidates. The second problem is that it's not a primary election, it's a rolling circus. If primaries were RCV and happened on a single nationwide date, it's more likely that centrist candidates will emerge from the process.

That sounds speculative.

Primaries are a bit crazy. But they do have an interesting effect of spotlighting different candidates, putting them under pressure l, and see if they hold up. That's not necessarily bad, but the order of contests means that when you get the spotlight has a dramatic effect on the number of votes you get.

"The more moderate candidates [than Trump] never consolidated..."

Thinking of Trump as a far-right candidate is, in my opinion, a misread. He's operating on a different axis. Many of his policies are center-left: no wars, peace deals, love letters to Kim Jong Un, the First Step Act, massive stimulus, and inner city programs.

His main positions on the right are conservative judges and the border wall. He kind of went crazy on those two things, and did a bunch of other non-partisan crazy things. But overall he doesn't fit into the left/right divide.

You are correct, I should have said "establishment" rather than "moderate".

It's hard to tell. In the 2016 primaries Trump had 44% of the vote. That's a lot, and it's more than the other candidates, but its not a majority of the total vote. In the earlier primaries he most of his victories were in the 30's. So now you have to guess where he ranked for the 60-70% of people that voted for other people in early primaries. He might have still won, or other candidates could have emerged with majorities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_Republican...

[edit] I guess that doesn't really answer your question, because you asked about this election...

Just the fact that he's an incumbent virtually guarantees that he'd get a lot of #1 slots. Unless there was a mass exodus of his base or a major Republican challenger, which I don't see.