republicans, still reeling from a videotape in which donald trump speaks crudely about women, openly bickered monday as they found themselves at risk of losing the white house, the senate and maybe even the house of representatives. house speaker paul ryan cut the cord to the trump campaign monday, telling house colleagues to do what they needed to survive politically while he would neither campaign for nor defend their party<u+2019>s presidential nominee. his focus, he told them, will be on holding the gop house majority and on <u+201c>making sure that hillary clinton does not get a blank check<u+201d> if the democratic nominee prevails in november and her party seizes control of the senate. capital journal is wsj.com<u+2019>s home for election 2016 news. the events presented a remarkable spectacle of the party<u+2019>s chaotic state. it is unprecedented in recent political history for a presidential nominee to be repudiated by his party<u+2019>s congressional leadership. republicans have to reach back to 1964 to find an example of a nominee, barry goldwater, who wrought lasting divisions within the party. many republican national committee members and other trump supporters reacted in fury and called their leaders cowards for not standing by mr. trump. <u+201c>we<u+2019>re tired of a bunch of fraidy-cat elected officials who at the very drop of a hat turn tail when the going gets rough,<u+201d> said bruce ash, the rnc committee member for arizona. he predicted that arizona gop sen. john mccain, who on saturday recanted his endorsement of mr. trump, would pay a price in his re-election bid next month. <u+201c>john mccain may have lost his re-election,<u+201d> mr. ash said monday. <u+201c>this is a miscalculation created in the middle of a frenzy.<u+201d> mr. ryan faced blowback from some members of his house conference, many of whom represent districts thick with trump supporters. the backlash could complicate his bid for re-election as speaker in 2017, assuming his party holds its majority. <u+201c>just bad-mouthing our candidate is not acceptable,<u+201d> said rep. dana rohrabacher (r., calif.) after hearing mr. ryan say he wouldn<u+2019>t defend or campaign with mr. trump. <u+201c>if you<u+2019>re saying bad things about your candidate, you might as well be on the other side.<u+201d> with pro-trump protesters assembled outside the rnc doors, gop chairman reince priebus held a monday afternoon conference call for the 168 rnc members to assure them that, contrary to media reports, the committee isn<u+2019>t abandoning mr. trump. election day is still almost a month away, which leaves time for this year<u+2019>s unpredictable presidential race to take even more twists and turns. yet the events of recent days revealed a party spinning apart with no clear leader to try to put it back together in time for the november showdown with mrs. clinton and her multimillion-dollar voter-turnout machine. in fact, things could get worse as mr. trump and his allies have promised retribution for those who crossed him. <u+201c>so many self-righteous hypocrites,<u+201d> he tweeted sunday. <u+201c>watch their poll numbers<u+2014>and elections<u+2014>go down!<u+201d> the political costs of cutting off mr. trump were underscored by a new wall street journal/nbc news poll released monday to gauge the impact of the release of the lewd trump tape, which showed him using vulgar language to describe his forcing himself on women. in the poll, two-thirds of republicans said they believed gop officials shouldn<u+2019>t abandon the candidate over the video. still, the poll showed the toll the episode is taking on the party. it found that mrs. clinton had opened an 11-point lead over mr. trump, up from a 6-point lead in september. more worrisome still for the party<u+2019>s congressional establishment, the poll found that democrats<u+2019> advantage on the question of which party should control congress widened to 7 percentage points, up from 3 percentage points last month. the seeds of a split between the party<u+2019>s presidential nominee and its top elected official, mr. ryan, were planted during the primary season when mr. trump mocked and belittled some of the gop<u+2019>s brightest stars. his elevation to party standard bearer was never a comfortable one, but the swiftness of the break was astonishing, the culmination of three head-spinning days. it began with the release late friday of the 2005 video laden with vulgar words never before heard by voters from the mouth of a presidential candidate. <u+201c>when you<u+2019>re a star, they let you do it. you can do anything.<u+2026>grab them by the pussy. you can do anything,<u+201d> mr. trump added. mr. trump also referred to a married woman whom he said he tried to seduce: <u+201c>i moved on her and i failed. i<u+2019>ll admit it. i did try and f<u+2014>her.<u+2026><u+201d> dozens of republicans denounced the statement but only a handful rescinded their endorsements friday. the bluntest rebuke came when mr. ryan un-invited mr. trump to a rally with him in his home state of wisconsin, although mr. ryan did not take back his endorsement. by midnight, mr. trump released a videotaped message with a grudging apology. an hour later, a furious sen. mike lee of utah, who had sparred with mr. trump for months, posted a call on twitter for mr. trump to <u+201c>step aside,<u+201d> setting off an apparent chain reaction. at 11:14 a.m. saturday, sen. mike crapo withdrew his endorsement, tweeting that the nominee<u+2019>s <u+201c>repeated actions and comments toward women have been disrespectful, profane and demeaning.<u+201d> at 11:37 a.m., new hampshire sen. kelly ayotte tweeted that she would write in the name of vice presidential nominee mike pence instead of voting for mr. trump. unlike mr. lee and mr. crapo, ms. ayotte<u+2019>s decision was steeped in risk as she is facing one of the most competitive re-election races in the 2016 season. she already had become mired in controversy when she called her party<u+2019>s nominee a good role model, only later to take it back. mr. trump<u+2019>s crudeness in the video had struck a chord in ms. ayotte, who prosecuted sex crimes in the new hampshire attorney general<u+2019>s office. and then there was her preteen daughter; the senator told reporters the following day that she couldn<u+2019>t look the girl in the eye and support mr. trump. less than two hours later, sen. john thune of south dakota, a party loyalist, was the first member of senate gop leadership to call for mr. trump to step aside. <u+201c>donald trump should withdraw and mike pence should be our nominee effective immediately,<u+201d> mr. thune said in a tweet at 12:51 p.m. on saturday. mr. thune<u+2019>s statement rankled with some of his constituents, who angrily posted on his facebook page over the weekend that they would not be supporting him in november. mr. thune is up for re-election this year, but is still expected to easily win his race. at 2:10 and 2:21, alaska<u+2019>s two senators abandoned mr. trump. the defections kept coming until 9:30 p.m., when ohio sen. rob portman withdrew his support<u+2014>forcing mr. trump to compete in a critical presidential battleground state without the backing of its republican senator and governor, john kasich, a former gop primary rival. as the initial flurry settled down, many republican lawmakers said they would wait until sunday<u+2019>s debate to decide their course. in that showdown, mr. trump offered a brief apology for his remarks in the video and then launched into a relentless attack on mrs. clinton, ranging from her husband<u+2019>s infidelities in the 1990s to her use of a personal email server while running the state department. while the performance turned off some voters, it delighted his core supporters who now are threatening to turn on the republican insiders who have abandoned their champion. <u+201c>i think they<u+2019>re all horrible,<u+201d> said 77-year-old retiree anita tinnion, who attended mr. trump<u+2019>s monday rally in ambridge, pa. <u+201c>what he said wasn<u+2019>t nice and he apologized. they<u+2019>re all so high and mighty? i think he<u+2019>s better off without them.<u+201d> <u+2014>siobhan hughes and kristina peterson contributed to this article. write to janet hook at janet.hook@wsj.com and reid j. epstein at reid.epstein@wsj.com
gop feuds over support for donald trump    - wsj
janet hook reid j. epstein