Republican officials “are now preparing for the possibility of a brokered convention as Donald Trump continues sit atop the polls and the presidential race,” the Washington Post reports.

“More than 20 of them convened Monday for a dinner held by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, where the prospect of Trump nearing next year’s nominating convention in Cleveland with a significant number of delegates dominated the discussion… Considering that scenario as Priebus and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) listened, several longtime power brokers argued that if the controversial billionaire storms through the primaries, the party’s establishment must lay the groundwork for a floor fight, in which the GOP’s mainstream wing could coalesce around an alternative, the people said.”

Donald Trump “is renewing his threats to run as a third-party candidate — and it looks like he could keep top Republican officials sweating a potential independent bid all the way through next summer,” ABC News reports.

A new Gallup survey finds Donald Trump vies with Hillary Clinton as the presidential race’s best-known candidate, but he is by far the least-liked of the field, with 59% viewing him unfavorably and 32% favorably, yielding a net favorable score of -27.

“Despite predictions that such searing, divisive rhetoric and the resulting outcry would cripple his campaign, Donald Trump’s insults and controversial proposals have propelled him to the forefront of the 2016 presidential race — and kept him there.”

“And while it may seem like a lurching, chaotic campaign, Trump is, for the most part, a disciplined and methodical candidate, according to a Washington Post review of the businessman’s speeches, interviews and thousands of tweets and retweets over the past six months.”

Associated Press: “Even campaigning half as much as his rivals, Donald Trump is drowning them out in an echo chamber of insults and charged pronouncements that have taken over the presidential campaign. Frustrated GOP candidates trekking across Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina are struggling to be heard.”

National Journal: “It turns out that a non­trivi­al share of these same work­ing-class, anti-im­mig­rant voters won’t tell a live per­son who they sup­port but will share their true feel­ings when their sup­port is secret—like on Elec­tion Day. This is no sur­prise: Sup­port for im­mig­ra­tion and glob­al­iz­a­tion are per­haps the only polit­ic­al sen­ti­ments that unite elites from both busi­ness and the academy, from right and left. Openly sup­port­ing an anti-im­mig­ra­tion can­did­ate can risk so­cial op­pro­bri­um, ri­dicule, or worse. In oth­er words, for every group of vo­cal Trump sup­port­ers, there are prob­ably a lot more who just don’t ad­vert­ise it.”

“One thing I’ve learned about the press is they’re always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational, the better. It’s in the nature of the job, and I understand that. The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.

“I don’t mind controversy, and my deals tend to be somewhat ambitious. The result is that the press has always wanted to write about me.”

— Donald Trump, in his 1987 book The Art of the Deal.

Donald Trump was interviewed by Barbara Walters on ABC News:

WALTERS: Are you a bigot?

TRUMP: Not at all. Probably the least of anybody you’ve ever met.

WALTERS: Because?

TRUMP: ‘Cause I’m not! I’m a person that has common sense, I’m a smart person, I know how to run things, I know how to make America great again.

Donald Trump told the Washington Post he’s staying in the presidential race until the end.

Said Trump: “I will never leave the race.”

When asked again, he waved one arm over his head, as if to clear away everything and remove all doubt: “I. Will. Never. Leave. This. Race.”

“I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to ISIS.”

— Donald Trump, in an interview with ABC News.

“BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith told staff in a memo on Tuesday that it’s permissible for them to call Donald Trump a racist as a fact on social media,” Politico reports.

“Donald Trump continues to go where no recent candidate for president has gone before, plunging the Republican Party — and the nation — into another round in the tumultuous debate about immigration, national identity, terrorism and the limits of tolerance,” the Washington Post reports.

“Nothing in modern politics equates with the kind of rhetoric now coming from Candidate Trump. There are no perfect analogies. One must scroll back decades for echoes, however imperfect, of what he is saying, from the populist and racially based appeals of then-Alabama Gov. George Wallace in 1968 and 1972 to the anti-Semitic diatribes of the radio preacher Charles Coughlin during the 1930s.”

Politico: “With the Iowa caucuses just 55 days away, Republicans are beginning to see Trump as a dire threat to their majorities on Capitol Hill. And they’re warning that the GOP poll leader, who this week called for a ban on Muslims entering the country, will cause irreparable harm to the party.”

“From vulnerable senators to top party officials, the fear is palpable and bursting into public view. Congressional Republicans face a tough 2016 landscape even without Trump. Senate Republicans are clinging to a four-seat majority as they defend 24 seats versus just 10 for Democrats. And House Republicans are expecting to lose roughly a dozen seats in 2016. Trump’s rhetoric, they fear, could cause those losses to grow substantially.”