Regardless of the merits of raising the specter of unrest, there is no doubt that taking the nomination away from Trump would spark enormous outrage among the businessman’s supporters. But Republicans who believe that his nomination could devastate the party’s chances in down-ballot elections — and harm the GOP’s image for years to come — might believe that is a price worth paying.

“The Republicans are damned if they do and damned if they don’t,” said Tobe Berkovitz, a Boston University professor who specializes in political communications. Berkovitz said that while “it is certainly a realistic fear that Candidate Trump will take down all the down-ballot stuff,” any attempt to thwart him would be fraught with difficulty.

Berkovitz said that in that scenario, Trump’s supporters “would say, ‘We wuz robbed.’ Okay, he didn’t get a majority, but he came very close and it was very clear through the primary process that he was the preferred candidate, fair and square.”…

Even Republican strategists who are not Trump supporters acknowledge that the businessman probably does not have to reach 1,237 itself. It would be sufficient for him to come close. Conversely, he needs to finish a significant distance short of that marker for any effort to rebuff him to have a chance of succeeding, the experts suggest.