A group of more than 70 former Republican officeholders and national committee staff and officers have penned a letter to RNC chair Reince Priebus urging him to stop spending party money to boost Trump's presidential campaign and instead focus on vulnerable House and Senate seats. Politico has the scoop:

"We believe that Donald Trump's divisiveness, recklessness, incompetence, and record-breaking unpopularity risk turning this election into a Democratic landslide, and only the immediate shift of all available RNC resources to vulnerable Senate and House races will prevent the GOP from drowning with a Trump-emblazoned anchor around its neck," states a draft of the letter obtained by POLITICO. "This should not be a difficult decision, as Donald Trump's chances of being elected president are evaporating by the day." Former Sen. Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire and former Reps. Chris Shays of Connecticut, Tom Coleman of Missouri and Vin Weber of Minnesota are among the Republicans lending their name to the letter. Close to 20 of the co-signers are former RNC staffers, including Mindy Finn (former RNC chief digital strategist), Christine Iverson Gunderson (former RNC press secretary), Virginia Hume Onufer (former RNC deputy press secretary), Beth Miller (former RNC field communications division director), Heather Layman (former deputy press secretary), B. Jay Cooper (former RNC communications director under four chairmen) and Patrick Ruffini (former RNC ecampaign director). Republican Andrew Weinstein, a vocal anti-Trump Republican, is one of the operatives organizing the letter, which began circulating earlier this week and is expected to be sent next week. Weinstein served as director of media relations for the Dole/Kemp presidential campaign and was deputy press secretary to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Weinstein said that the letter is coming from "People who want the party to protect its majorities in the Senate and the House. It's not an endorsement of anybody."

And here's the Washington Post Friday morning: "Some of the country's wealthiest Republican donors are targeting Senate and House races around the country, hoping a financial firewall will protect the party's congressional majorities on Nov. 8."

So it seems some Republicans are heeding the advice Jonathan V. Last gave Thursday at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Last suggested the party would benefit in the short- and long-terms by abandoning Trump sooner rather than later:

Can it ever be wise to pull the plug on a presidential campaign? Of course it can. When a campaign has no reasonable path to victory and the candidate at the top of the ticket is a drag on the down ballot elections, decisions must be made. There are two ineluctable truths of campaigns: Resources are finite and candidates matter. If, on October 15, Trump is down 15 points and vulnerable senators such as Kelly Ayotte, Rob Portman, Pat Toomey, and Richard Burr are within the margin of error in their races, it would be a no-brainer for Republicans to shift all available resources away from the presidential contest and to the state elections. (This is what happened with Bob Dole in 1996.) So if such a strategic calculation would be valid in late October, the question isn't whether or not it canbe made, but only when it should be made. Perhaps mid-August is a little early. Then again, perhaps not. Because the utility of those marginal dollars decreases every week you wait to execute the shift. If you favor withholding resources from vulnerable senators for a few more weeks so as to give Trump the chance to reset the race, that's fine. But understand that decision comes with a cost, and at this point we are merely haggling over price. The general principle has been established. The RNC and big money donors (who are holding a Hamptons fundraiser this Saturday) are going to pull the plug eventually. The longer they wait, the less help they'll be to congressional Republicans.