“I think the tailspin could be really bad — historic proportions bad,” said Tony Fratto, who served as deputy White House press secretary during former President George W. Bush’s administration. “I think it’ll be a historically bad loss. I’ve said that from the very beginning.”…

“At the general election stage, you need the state level or the local level [party officials] to help out with turnout. If you don’t have people rowing in your boat in states that matter, then you are going to run into a problem,” said Grant Reeher, a professor of political science at Syracuse University.

On Wednesday, Trump told a crowd of supporters in Atlanta that Republican leaders needed to “be quiet.” The billionaire added that he might need “to do it alone.”

Reeher is somewhat less pessimistic than many Republican strategists about Trump’s chance of prevailing over Clinton. Although he stopped well short of predicting a Republican victory, he pointed out that past nominees such as George H.W. Bush suffered worse polling numbers than Trump early in their campaigns, only to go on to win the White House.