Since we don’t know how the presidential election will turn out this year, we can’t say what the history books will tell us about it, but a psychological study of the Republican Party in this moment of crisis would be a classic for all times to come. It may be coincidence that the two GOP senators who are the most “Never Trump” (Jeff Flake and Ben Sasse) aren’t running this cycle, but for those who are, and are running close races in states with Trump fans and Trump haters, it is a case less of being for Trump before being against him than of being both for AND against him at once.

“While he has my support, he doesn’t have my endorsement,” Kelly Ayotte said of Trump in New Hampshire, insisting there was “a distinction” between them, though she couldn’t explain what it was. As the one embattled Senate Republican who has neither endorsed or renounced Trump, Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey has been threading the needle, saying he wants to support “the nominee of my party” while admitting he isn’t there yet.