Because Trump will be tied up with a presidential transition and the legal questions about sentencing a president are so complex, some scholars see very little chance it will stay on the calendar.

Mr. Uchida of Arthur D. Little said there is very little chance that this year’s lower approval rating would lead to something as big as Mr. Toyoda stepping down.

The World Anti-Doping Agency accepted that explanation, saying in part that it had very little chance of winning an appeal had it opened a case.

“To be clear, had the Bob Fergusons not dropped out, and if the secretary of state had not changed the ballot order we would have filed a lawsuit challenging that decision and we would have won,” Ferguson said, saying there was “very little chance” a judge would have allowed the “criminal scheme” to go unchecked.

"It very much is doable but by pretending that things are now better when in fact they are not you are doing a disservice to the victims and you are allowing abusers to continue to abuse knowing that there is very little chance they will be apprehended or prosecuted."