“The Republican Party tumbled toward anarchy Monday over its presidential nominee, as House Speaker Paul Ryan cut Donald Trump loose in an emergency maneuver to preserve the party’s endangered congressional majorities,” the Washington Post reports.

“With Republicans at war amongst themselves, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton moved swiftly Monday to pry away moderate Republican-leaning voters who are turned off by Trump. Her campaign launched an advertising blitz featuring testimonials from ordinary Republicans explaining why they were voting for Clinton.”

Wall Street Journal: “That darkening picture for Republicans has some in the party concerned that they won’t be able to maintain their majorities in the Senate and even in the House.”

With Donald Trump’s campaign in a historic free-fall, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus declared that the party is standing behind its presidential nominee, Politico reports.

Mark Burnett, the creator of “The Apprentice” says he does not have the legal ability to release footage from the show, denying reports that he is intentionally blocking the release of footage that may harm Donald Trump, CNN reports.

BuzzFeed reported that Burnett had privately threatened to sue staff if they leaked tapes to the media.

Priorities USA, the leading super PAC trying to elect Hillary Clinton, “is preparing to expand beyond the presidential race and potentially run television ads focused on a handful of competitive Senate races,” CNN reports.

“According to a source familiar with the plans, Priorities USA is currently producing television ads to potentially air in Senate contests in North Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania — all competitive races that are also battleground states for the presidential race.”

“I don’t characterize that as sexual assault.”

— Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), quoted by the Weekly Standard, on whether Donald Trump’s comments that he could “grab them by the pussy” was sexual assault.

The Lid: “But here’s another wrinkle that further complicates that bleak picture for the GOP: Despite the fact that Trump is now losing by double digits, fully two-thirds of Republicans say that others in their party should stick with the nominee. Just nine percent say that downballot Republicans should renounce their support of Trump, and 14 percent say they should call on Trump to quit. That’s a very, very tough place for Republicans to be right now.”

For members: A Looming Disaster for Republicans

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by 11 points nationally, 46% to 35%, with Gary Johnson at 9%.

The poll was taken after the video of Trump making lewd comments was disclosed but before last night’s debate.

In the generic congressional ballot, Democrats lead Republicans, 49% to 42%.

Nate Silver: “These instant-reaction polls actually do have a correlation with post-debate horse-race polls: The candidate who wins the former usually gains in the latter. Perhaps Clinton’s win was modest enough that this will be an exception, especially given that the sentiments of pundits and television commentators (which sometimes matter as much as the debate itself) were all over the map.”

“So suppose that we call the debate a draw. Suppose, furthermore that the tape the Post published didn’t damage Trump. Instead, let’s say the polls look about the same a week from now as they do today, with Clinton holding a 5 or 6 percentage point lead. Maybe Clinton’s numbers were a little inflated after the first debate and Trump has even gained a point or two, somehow.”

“That’s still a fairly awful position for Trump with time running out, undecided voters getting off the sidelines, early voting already taking place in many states and little or no ground game to help provide a strong finishing kick. There’s the third debate, but without an extremely strong performance in that one, Trump is probably left hoping for an ‘October surprise’ or a big polling error (not impossible, but it would have to be larger than the 4-point margin by which Brexit polls missed).”

Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball moves Ohio to Hillary Clinton’s column:

There has been a lot written about why Donald Trump will perform better in Ohio than nationally — we devoted an entire article to it last week. Both the state’s history of having a slight Republican lean and its current demographics make it friendlier to Trump than the nation as a whole. However, polling in the state is showing that Donald Trump’s lead from a few weeks ago has evaporated, and the most recent surveys actually have had Clinton ahead. We’ve also caught wind of some unreleased polling that mirrors these results. If Clinton has a national lead of around four or five points, there’s good reason to think that Ohio will end up voting for her, even if it has a redder tint than usual.

The Clinton campaign also appears to be redoubling its efforts in this historic bellwether, further putting to bed rumors that the Clinton campaign might not be focusing much on the state (although one never knows what might happen in the final month of this contest). Clinton herself is campaigning on Monday in Columbus, a place where she will likely need to match or probably even exceed Obama’s performance to win the state, and President Obama is campaigning in Cleveland and Columbus later in the week. On Thursday, Trump will be in Cincinnati, the heart of vote-rich southwest Ohio, a conservative region that is vital to any Republican’s statewide chances.

If Clinton wins Ohio, Trump has no path to victory. No Republican has ever won the White House without it, and, particularly in this election, Ohio’s demographics should make it relatively low-hanging fruit for the Republicans. So we now have Trump as the underdog in Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, three electoral vote-rich states that he absolutely needs to have any chance to win.