Trump's Slide in Polls Worries Down-Ballot GOPers

With not much more than a month to go until Election Day, Donald Trump is sliding in the polls, causing some down-ballot GOP candidates to wonder whether it is too late to back away from him. Republican sources tell the New York Times that some candidates, fearing that a Trump collapse could cost them the election, and even cost the party control of the House and Senate, have decided to wait until this Sunday's second debate to decide whether to abandon the candidate. Polls show that independent voters have been pulling away from Trump, whose unpopularity could prove to be the deciding factor in tight races nationwide.

Some Republicans, including major donors, say they have already given up hope that Trump will win the election and are now hoping he can pull off a "lose-close" strategy, holding Clinton to a narrow win and not pulling other Republican candidates down with him. For now, Trump's best remaining hopes of victory appear to be in the West, where he has been campaigning this week, Politico reports. "The path to 270 goes through all the same states as it did in 2012 and 2008," says Katie Packer, Mitt Romney's deputy campaign chief in 2012. "Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania aren't really even swing states. The math still comes down to suburban women and Latino voters." (More Donald Trump stories.)