LESTER HOLT (HOST): Good evening, 29 days until election day, and our new poll numbers out tonight speak to the urgent crisis exploding inside the Republican party from the top down. With Donald Trump's fortunes fading over his lewd comments about women, a GOP civil war has broken out. At its center, party loyalty versus self-survival.



The crisis underscored by a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll taken after the controversy broke and before last night's debate. It shows Hillary Clinton now with an 11-point lead over Trump nationally among likely voters. 



HALLIE JACKSON: Tonight, abandonment and astonishment as the country's top Republican walks away from the top of his ticket. House speaker Paul Ryan telling his colleagues on a conference call, he won't defend Donald Trump anymore, won't campaign for him. Essentially conceding Trump won't win. Sources on the call revealing Ryan was forced to reiterate he won't unendorse Trump after facing backlash from angry House members.-- 

[...]

JACKSON: Ryan's Republicans and Trump's, a coalition now crumbling. Our new polling shows more voters want Democrats to control congress by the widest margin since 2013. But the Republican party is still standing by his nominee. Late tonight, NBC news has learned, privately reassuring its members of its great relationship with Trump.

Previously: 

NBC's Nicolle Wallace On Trump: “This Is What's Happening In The Republican Party. This Is The Bottom Dropping Out”

Sean Hannity: After Abandoning Trump, Paul Ryan And Others Like Him Are “Done”

Sean Hannity Declares Paul Ryan’s Republican Party “Dead”