To be honest, at this point, I think Bakugou is only here because fans, the author, and Jump demanded him. While it's clear that Horikoshi loves writing Bakugou than Deku because god knows every character development went to Bakugou and Deku. But, I think it's clear that the love of Bakugou outweighs his hate, I mean he is the focus of the second movie for no good reason. I believe it's already known that he is the winner of every popularity vote aside from the first one.
I also think that at this point, you can erase half of the MHA cast with Thanos snap or kill them in the Secret War and the story of Deku will still there. I mean, aside from Deku who just suddenly become the strongest, most useful, and unbeatable hero every students in UA is interchangeable. The same can be said with Bakugou, he doesn't have any role, I mean important role in the story aside from supposed to be Deku's rival (I mean that even laughable because how weak he is compared to Deku now, Deku has seven quirks with three already unlocked and Bakugou only has one and not even comparable to Deku's three) and just popular because he has more noticeable character developments than the other.
So at this point if Bakugou is still alive or well after the attack that he got there! Then he is really, really, beloved by fans and because of that Editor ask Horikoshi not to kill him and Horikoshi is happy to do so because Bakugou is one of his favorite character.