Why Trump’s scorched-Earth campaign could burn down the GOP | McClatchy Washington Bureau

Heading into the final four weeks of the campaign, Republicans are steeling for sweeping losses, not only of the White House but also possibly of the Senate and even the House of Representatives.

The momentum’s not quite there yet – Hillary Clinton remains a deeply polarizing figure as the face of the Democratic Party.

But GOP panic was evident Monday across the country as Donald Trump sunk farther behind in a new poll, the top Republican in the government all but abandoned his party’s nominee and embattled Republicans recognized the now very strong possibility that they will surrender control of the White House and entire Congress to the Democrats.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told Republicans in a conference call Monday that he would not defend Trump anymore and instead would try hard to make sure a President Clinton “doesn’t get a blank check” with a Democratic-led Congress. He also urged colleagues to try to save themselves, however they saw fit. “You all need to do what’s best for your district,” Ryan said, according to a person on the call.

There was little doubt, though, that it’s Trump who’s splitting open the party.

A weekend NBC News/Wall St. Journal poll conducted after the release of a tape with Trump making lewd comments about women found his support dropping and him falling behind Clinton by double digits.

The poll also found 49 percent of voters said they wanted Democrats to control Congress, compared with 42 percent who wanted Republican majorities. Democrats had had a 3-point edge last month.

While the list of Republican defections from Trump didn’t grow much Monday, it remains a daunting roster of well-known party names, including 2008 presidential nominee John McCain, longtime party stalwart Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, and Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate’s third-ranking leader.

Democrats need a net gain of four Senate seats if Clinton becomes president and five if Trump wins to gain control of the chamber. The House is tougher: Democrats need a net gain of 30 seats, and most districts are carefully drawn to protect incumbents.

“There have been events to show they’re now poised to do well,” Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of a nonpartisan political report, said of Democrats. He cautioned, though, that he needs more data before saying there’s a definite trend.

Sunday’s debate made it clear that Trump’s sticking around, and that’s not good news for him or Republicans seeking other offices.

“A month out, when you’re fighting to hold on to the base you already have, is not what you need for a winning campaign,” Whit Ayres, a Virginia-based Republican strategist, said of Trump.

Indeed, Trump’s support dropped to 35 percent of likely voters in the NBC/WSJ poll. It had been holding steadily at about 42-43 percent before the tape.

As Trump drops, Democrats are escalating their efforts to tether him to other GOP candidates.

In Florida, Democrat Patrick Murphy sent out a fundraising appeal reminding voters that Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., continues to support Trump, the Miami Herald reported. Rubio has sharply criticized Trump’s comments about women but has not withdrawn his support.

“This is a new low, even for Marco Rubio,” Murphy wrote.

In Pennsylvania, where incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Toomey is locked in the second-most-expensive Senate race in the country, Democratic challenger Katie McGinty sought to tie him to the Republican presidential nominee Monday.

“Pat Toomey likes to say that he’s going to go to Washington to stand up to Donald Trump. Really?” McGinty said. “How about standing up to Donald Trump right here, right now today?”

Toomey is trying hard to distance himself from Trump. “I have not endorsed Donald Trump and I have repeatedly spoken out against his flawed policies, and his outrageous comments, including his indefensible and appalling comments about women,” he said in a statement.

Trump and Republicans need two key voting blocs to win, independents and women. And signs are that their support among both groups is eroding fast.

Even before Sunday’s debate, support among women for Trump was way down, and the debate did little to help, said Republican strategist Bill Dal Col.

“I’m not sure you can make up the difference,” he said.

While bringing four women from the Clintons’ past to the debate helped Trump among his base, Dal Col said, the move could also cause voters to view Hillary Clinton sympathetically.

Trump’s comments about Bill Clinton’s history with women did help strengthen him with die-hard supporters. Brandon Keller, 24, from Kansas City, Kansas, explained that he was too young to remember the history of Clinton’s affair with intern Monica Lewinsky.

“That’s new to a younger generation,” he said, “and it matters.”

The outlook for gaining independent voters, though, is bleak. Even before the news about Trump’s lewd comments broke, they were leaving him “in droves,” as the Quinnipiac Poll’s Tim Malloy put it.

Jonathan Felts, a former White House political director for President George W. Bush who’s now a partner in a public affairs firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina, said that if Trump could stay focused on jobs and trade, “he could still cobble together enough disaffected Democrat and Republican voters to eke out a victory in a state like North Carolina.”

Trump was up by 7 points in the Quinnipiac national poll among independents just before the first debate Sept. 26 but was 14 behind Clinton late last week – before news about his comments surfaced.

Republican candidates hope they’re peeling away from Trump early enough in the campaign so there’s enough time to show their independence.

In 1996, when it became apparent the GOP’s Bob Dole was headed for a crushing defeat, vulnerable Republicans promoted themselves as more independent.

It worked, as the party gained two Senate seats, lost one House seat and retained control of Congress, in a year when Bill Clinton won 379 electoral votes as Dole got 40.7 percent of the popular vote.

Republicans also are buoyed by Hillary Clinton as an attractive target. She’s viewed nearly as unfavorably as Trump, and generates little enthusiasm outside her base. Leaks of excerpts from her Wall Street speeches, where she talks about how one’s private views can legitimately differ from public comments, also have the potential to haunt her.

“Katie McGinty has yet to say a single word against Hillary Clinton’s disastrous policies that have endangered our country, her widespread dishonesty or the corruption of her behavior with the Clinton Foundation,” Toomey charged.

Democrats see another way of thwarting the GOP: stoking turnout among African-Americans, Latinos and young voters, all of whom have signaled they’ll voted heavily for Democrats.

The strategy, said Raleigh-based Democratic strategist Gary Pearce, is fairly simple: Bring the president and first lady in to campaign, and have an extensive field operation.