It’s a fool’s errand to search for method in Donald Trump’s campaign tactics, but if you were tasked with ascribing method to his behavior in recent weeks, you’d have to conclude his aim is to further divide his own party and unite the opposition. That has been the effect, anyway, of all of Trump’s late-campaign stunts: inviting Bill Clinton’s accusers to the second debate, bringing Barack Obama’s estranged half-brother to the third debate, and attacking Hillary Clinton abusively during what was meant to be a lighthearted roast at the Al Smith dinner.

Trump’s ongoing claim that the election is being “rigged” through voter fraud in minority communities, and his threat to reject the validity of the election result, are no exceptions. “I’ll look at it at the time,” Trump told Chris Wallace, the moderator of last week’s debate in Las Vegas, later adding, “I’ll keep you in suspense, OK?”

Republicans were reportedly despondent. A handful of GOP officeholders, and a number of conservative commentators, have since come forward to condemn Trump for vandalizing the underpinnings of democracy. The others who have remained silent, for fear of running afoul of his supporters, must nonetheless be concerned that Trump is undercutting his own turnout efforts by increasing the perception among those supporters that voting is pointless. By contrast, Trump’s efforts to incite voter intimidation and accuse minority voters of ballot-stuffing is at least correlated with, if not causing, an increase in early voting among Democrats.

Trump’s antics are forcing Republicans to confront a nightmare scenario in which they underperform the polls, which are already ominous for down-ballot GOP candidates. But the truly horrifying scenario for them is one they probably haven’t thought of yet, and it isn’t that Trump refuses to concede when Clinton defeats him.

The best Republicans can hope for between now and November 8 is minimal drama: Trump dials down the conspiratorial, Breitbart-inspired agitprop. He promises to accept the results of the election. If no major new damning Trump revelations surface, while Clinton faces a steady rollout of hacked, unflattering campaign emails, the polling gap would narrow and Republicans further down the ticket would stand a better chance of staving off a Democratic wave.