Life will go on for Donald Trump after November 8, win or lose. Defeat might even be kinder to his reputation than victory, making him a folk hero, the Quixote who tried to found a new party but lost to forces larger than himself. (Never mind whether the narrative is in sync with reality—symbolism has its own rules.) Many of his associates and supporters will be fine, too. People like Jeff Sessions, Ann Coulter, and Stephen Bannon already believed in Trumpism before Trump came along. But times will be hard on those who threw in their lot with Trump just to come along for the ride. We speak here of people like Mike Pence, Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, and Roger Ailes.

Some politicians are dislikable in public but charming as hell in private. Then there’s Newt Gingrich. There’s a reason he’s been out of office for 17 years. Or, to quote Donald Trump, “Newt is Newt.” But Gingrich wants back in, and he has long recognized the power of populism, making him an early adopter of Trump. To his credit, Gingrich actually gets Trumpism. But he doesn’t quite get Trump, who demands fanatical loyalty, while Gingrich delivers frequent repudiations through newspapers and cable news. Nor does he get how to make himself more appealing to the public, which hasn’t been clamoring to restore him to office. So he’s got a tough job either way, but he needs Trump to win to have a shot at anything. If Trump becomes president, Gingrich can grab a coattail, possibly with his teeth, and refuse to unlock his jaw, and it might get him some sort of post. But if Trump loses, it’s back to novel writing, probably for good.

Rudy Giuliani loves excitement and power—as mayor, when restless, he’d even use his power to create excitement—but the years since he left office have offered little of either. He looked like a top G.O.P. presidential prospect back in 2007, but that faded away, and he never got close to high office. Now his only plausible return to the big leagues appeared to run through Trump, for whom Giuliani has gone full guns. Never mind that Giuliani is in line with the G.O.P. establishment on trade and immigration, and he’s a flat-out hawk on foreign policy. Few surrogates and defenders of Trump have been more loyal. Giuliani’s finest moment was telling the Republican convention that Trump had a record of munificence—toward injured firefighters or police officers or anyone in trouble—for which he spurned all recognition. “He’s not going to like my telling you this, but he did it anonymously,” said Giuliani. “He came forward and he helped, and he asked not to be mentioned.” Yes, Trump is a self-effacing spender. Disbelieve if you wish.

Then there’s Mike Pence, a Republican’s Republican, which is another way of saying that members of Congress love him and the rest of the world doesn’t. Pence is so paint-by-the-numbers on G.O.P. talking points that he’ll veer 180 degrees from his running mate on policy. Embarrassingly, Trump wound up slapping Pence down publicly on the call to intervene against Russia in Syria, telling Martha Raddatz, “He and I haven’t spoken, and he and I disagree.” But Pence’s alternative path was to run to be governor of Indiana once more—and probably lose. So he went for it. Pence’s policy deviations are probably his attempts to look like his own man, to make the case that he is “balancing” the ticket. But they look more like the efforts of someone who wants it both ways: the glory of a vice-presidential candidacy without the drawbacks of Trump. If he runs for office once more—a Senate seat, say—Pence will be ripe for accusations of soulless opportunism, for being neither supportive of Trump nor resistant to him. But, to be fair, soulless opportunism is rarely a shock to voters, so there’s hope.