I think he'd be very likely to be elected if Trump runs as VP on the same ticket and they both publicly state that it would be a 3rd Trump term in all but name.

It's not even a new gambit. Putin did exactly this back in 2008 after doing two terms as president, swapping with his then-prime minister Medvedev for 4 years. Medvedev was also a nobody before becoming the prime minister, and there was absolutely no way he'd be elected if people didn't treat him as a figurehead for 4 more years of Putin's rule.

There is something to be said for, to date, nobody on the right wing in the US managing to even partially recapture Trump's particularly inexplicable brand of charisma. Everybody who has tried has just flamed out (e.g. DeSantis cratering like Wile E. Coyote just looked down).

I pin my hopes on that failure continuing.