If you are a Republican politician not named Donald Trump, your life right now is pain.

These two tweets from The Washington Post's Robert Costa explain why:

Donald Trump is gross and is electoral poison. Republican officials knew this even before an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Monday showed Trump down 11 points after Friday's release of the 2005 "Access Hollywood" tape.

Republicans would like to abandon Trump, and many have. But Trump chose his ultraconfrontational debate strategy Sunday night for a reason: His base of voters eats it up.

For a lot of Trump voters, this election isn't about policy, it's not about conservative values, and it's certainly not about treating people with respect and decency. It's about seeking vengeance.

Those voters like the Trump they saw Sunday night, they like the Trump who has been outraging "the right people" ever since he started lying about Barack Obama's birth certificate in 2011, and they maybe even kind of like the Trump whom Billy Bush seemed to like so much on that tape from 2005.

For a lot of his fans, a vote for Trump is a vote to grab America by the p---y.

Republicans in Congress know this means they reject Trump at their peril. A Politico/Morning Consult poll found that 25% of Republicans said they would be less likely to vote for a downballot candidate who withdrew his or her support for Trump.

If you were an elected official beholden to these voters, you might even be tempted to call them "deplorable."

People didn't pay as much attention to this, but when Clinton called half of Trump's supporters deplorable, she also said something else — that half of his supporters aren't deplorable but are just disaffected. She stands to make significant inroads with those voters before Election Day.

Republican officials now know she was right about that part, too.