Everybody and their brother is trying to bury Donald Trump in the aftermath of the Republicans’ disappointing midterm elections performance. This is in no small part because he intends to announce his candidacy for president in an appearance Tuesday night at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Attempting to put some data behind the effort, in the Washington Post, Philip Wallach examined the competitive congressional races where Trump endorsed a candidate and found that his picks almost uniformly ran below expectations, while candidates he did not endorse ran above them.

In short, Trump remains quite popular among Republican voters, and his endorsement was decisive in plenty of House primaries this summer. But close association with the twice-impeached president was a clear liability in competitive 2022 House races, turning what would have been a modest-but-solid Republican majority into (at best) a razor-thin one.

Writing for The Bulwark, Christian Vanderbrouk notes that the Republicans have had previous opportunities to cast Trump aside, only to balk when confronted with the prospect of trying to win elections without the enthusiastic support of the MAGA hordes. Here’s how Michael Bender of the New York Times puts it:

Although his dominance of Republican politics has led to three disappointing elections in a row for his party, a solid and devoted core of conservative voters appears ready to follow him wherever he leads again — even if into defeat.

Perhaps Wallach’s study of the midterm results will provide some courage and perspective. If Trump makes it harder to win elections, how can it be that he’s some kind of necessary ingredient for electoral success?

The answer may be hard to quantify but it’s quite possible that the GOP is damned either way. Trump causes them to lose elections but the party has become reliant on his voters to win them. The reason this is plausible is because so many traditional Republicans have abandoned the party. It has drifted away from its national defense message. It has become unreliable, even hostile, on many key issues of concern to economic conservatives. These voters have been replaced mostly by former Democrats and non-voters, bolstered by greater enthusiasm from religious right.

They remain competitive with their new coalition, after all, they just retook control of the House of Representatives. But what does the coalition look like if Trump isn’t firmly on the inside of the party? Do the former Republicans come roaring back? Do the former Democrats embrace country club/Wall Street conservatism?

Obviously, the GOP could eventually revert to its norm from the younger Bush era, not that it was a juggernaut even then. But this seems unlikely in large part because Trumpism has a greater hold on the party and its elected officials than can be erased simply by deleting Trump. And even if the strategists could wave a magic wand and pursue such a path, the road would be bumpy and almost certainly involve at least one shellacking at the polls. This is because so much trust has been lost. The lack of MAGA support would be felt immediately, and the reward would take some time.

The Republicans are also wary of what would happen if Trump didn’t simply disappear but became actively adversarial. What if, for example, he told his followers that the GOP was filled with ungrateful traitors who should be punished? What if he launched an independent bid for the presidency?

Sadly, unless he wins the nomination, this is a real possibility. I could even see him doing it from prison.

So, the GOP still feels like they can’t break from Trump even if they feel like they pay a terrible price for allowing him to run roughshod over their best efforts to win elections. They’re not wrong.

The only way out is to take their shellacking.