With the last glimmers of Donald Trump’s White House hopes fading on the heels of his final debate performance, Republicans don’t even want to think about what comes next.
As they scramble to protect their congressional majority, Republican operatives and conservative leaders expect the party to muddle through the next few weeks as divided as it has been since the latest wave of defections triggered by the release of a 2005 tape in which Trump brags about sexual assault, and they are optimistic that ticket-splitting will allow their down-ballot candidates to survive the Trump-induced headwinds that they face.
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As for the post-election reckoning, with Trump refusing on Wednesday to pledge to accept the results, an angry base already blaming congressional leaders for abandoning the nominee, and the party’s brand with young people and minorities tarnished, by and large, Republicans are not ready to go there.
Asked where the party goes from here, Republican National Committee Committeewoman Christine Toretti of Pennsylvania responded, “The White House?” before adding, “I’m teasing. I’m no Miss Cleo! I have no comments at this time.”
Thursday morning had Republicans waxing philosophical about living in the present and the inexorable march of time. “I hesitate to make any broad predictions about things. Who knows what’s going to happen in the future?” said Republican operative and former Mitt Romney aide Ryan Williams, who limited his predictions to the fate of Hillary Clinton, who he said would start her presidency “as popular as a skunk at a garden party” and go on to match the “scandal-a-week” pace of her husband’s administration.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, declined to comment on the party’s future, saying she preferred to “stay in the moment.”
“This is a premature conversation in some ways,” said Republican strategist Charlie Gerow. Much, he said, will depend on “how Mr. Trump reacts to Nov. 8.”
Veteran lobbyist Charlie Black also called the question of the party’s future premature, “unless talking about how many elections we win next month.”
Sarah Isgur Flores, who served as Carly Fiorina’s deputy campaign manager, remained fixated on what might have been. “When you look at how far ahead of Trump these down-ballot Republican candidates are running, it’s clear how winnable the White House was for Republicans if we’d nominated a candidate with even the slightest strategy to win,” she said.
Flores expressed hope that after Election Day, the party can simply wash its hands of Trump and move on. “If those Senate and House races hold where we think they are, Paul Ryan and others will have a strong case to make that Trump wasn’t a Republican and that’s why he lost while all these actual conservatives won their races.”

But a more thorough reckoning is inevitable. Already, conservative groups are beginning to schedule their post-election confabs, where the soul-searching will begin in earnest. On Nov. 10, two days after the election, the Heritage Foundation will hold its post-election gathering on “The future of the Constitution in a new administration.”

Such events will be only the beginning of the process. “Anybody that thinks this is going to get resolved in a matter of days or weeks is frankly whistling past a graveyard,” Gerow said. “It’s going to take some time to put the pieces together.”

Romney’s loss in 2012 led to a long postmortem report, commissioned by the RNC, that recommended the party make itself more inclusive and welcoming, especially to Hispanics. But the autopsy’s authors and their fellow travelers have watched in dismay as Trump has led the party in the opposite direction, making the notion that another committee report will be sufficient to repair the damage fanciful.

“The problem with these election look-backs is that they happen in the first few months after the race ends, but by the time people are running a couple years later everybody’s forgotten about it,” said Williams.

For one conservative leader willing to contemplate the post-Trump future, the full extent of the work required to salvage the party could only be expressed in terms of reality television.

“For this election, the Republican Party should be thinking about ‘Survivor.’ Alliances only take you so far in the era of Trump Cult, so it’s really every man and woman for themselves,” said Iowa radio host Steve Deace. “Beyond this election, it’s ‘Extreme Home Makeover,’ with an emphasis on the extreme. This is not a home that needs mere updating. It needs to be trashed and masterfully rebuilt on the fly, and in a hurry if it wants to keep people’s attention and get renewed.”