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10/13/2016 07:56 AM EDT


By Heather Caygle (hcaygle@politico.com or @heatherscope)

WELL, THINGS JUST GOT A LOT WORSE- House Speaker Paul Ryan sounded alarm bells with top donors in a Wednesday night call, telling them he worries about the hit House Republicans have taken since the tape of Donald Trump talking about groping women was released Friday. The timing couldn't have been worse-Ryan's call came as a flurry of new allegations hit the web Wednesday night by women who claim they were groped by Trump in stories from the New York Times, the Palm Beach Post, People and BuzzFeed News.

At the same time, Trump's campaign announced it was doubling down on its strategy of hammering Hillary Clinton over her husband's past personal history with other women. "We're going to turn him into Bill Cosby," Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon told staff, reports Bloomberg's Joshua Green.

So where does all this leave Republicans? Not in a good place, obviously. During the call "Ryan noted that Republicans lost more than 20 seats in 2008, when John McCain lost to Barack Obama by seven percentage points. By comparison, Ryan pointed out grimly, Trump is trailing by around 10 percent nationally," report Alex Isenstadt and Bres. Read their story: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=64f5976463ad28c10a2d24c78baa8c4f1a4dee80d8a08179658f32b522f3eabf

THE TRUMP TWO-STEP CONTINUES-- Several lawmakers flip-flopped on Trump this week-saying they'd vote for him after all following calls for him to step down over the weekend-and that was before the latest round of allegations. Seung Min rounds up some of the Trump two-steppers: Sen. John Thune (No. 3 in GOP leadership), Sen. Deb Fischer, Reps. Scott Garrett and Bradley Byrne. It's unclear if any of those lawmakers (or others) will reverse course after the latest accusations.

But New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte is standing by her decision to un-endorse Trump and there's one big upside: She no longer has to defend him at every turn. Burgess with the Manchester, N.H. dispatch: "Standing up to Trump will help burnish her independent credentials, but Republicans are worried that her reversal on Trump will depress turnout among his core supporters. ...But Ayotte says she's willing to lose her race in order to repudiate a Republican standard bearer who has bragged about unwanted sexual advances on women."

"'I made the decision I made as a matter of principle,' said Ayotte, who had spent months criticizing Trump while maintaining she preferred him over Hillary Clinton. 'That's more important to me than winning an election.'" More from Burgess: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=64f5976463ad28c1ff461d2601ee0c856afc4c4d9e967995376a866d14861cf6

WAIT, WE'RE HOW FAR AWAY FROM THE ELECTION? Welcome to Thursday, Oct. 13. You're reading POLITICO's Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill. Election news got you feeling down? This heartwarming Washington Post story about how a Georgetown student changed the life of a university janitor and many others with a simple act of kindness will put a smile on your face.

WEDNESDAY'S MOST CLICKED- Erica Werner's tweet about Sen. Harry Reid's dining habits.

TODAY IN CONGRESS- The House is out. The Senate meets in a pro forma session at 2 p.m.

DEMS IN LOCK-STEP ON STRATEGY AGAIN- After months of simmering tensions between Capitol Hill Democrats and Clinton-world-partially over money, more over Clinton's decision to define Trump as different from typical Republicans-Democrats are on the same page again, report Shane Goldmacher and Gabriel Debenedetti.

With Trump plummeting in the polls and facing a barrage of sexual assault allegations spanning decades, Clinton and "congressional Democrats are entering the final four-week sprint more in sync than ever as she focuses not just on winning the White House but the Congress too. 'There's been vast improvement in the last week,' said the same House Democratic adviser."

But is it too late? With less than a month to go in the race, it's unclear how successful Clinton will be by tying rank-and-file Republicans to their nominee-a strategy some, like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, suggested doing much earlier this year--after months of not doing so. More from Shane and Gabe: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=64f5976463ad28c1f40a7b3b30e45c0c92394c0bfc507046032b8f3572f66d9d

DEMOCRATS HAMMER OPPONENTS OVER 'HOT MIC' MOMENT- Proof of better coordination between Democrats is already out there: Congressional Democrats have already started a wave of ads tying Trump's nasty language on the "Access Hollywood" tape to their GOP opponents. Just watch this brutal ad targeting GOP Rep. Darrell Issa, who announced he was joining Trump's team as a national security advisor the same day the tape was released: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=64f5976463ad28c18bff10c442a098d049a5566e0461d28ea80fbe9c9ecb9436

"All told, House Democrats and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have sponsored four such ads in the five days since the controversial 2005 'Access Hollywood' video went viral," Rachael and Seung Min report. "Senate Democrats are also jumping in on the action, using the video in which Trump boasts about getting away with kissing women and touching their genitals because of his 'star' power. And Democratic officials on both sides of the Capitol say there are plenty more to come."

Expect to hear a lot more like this from Dems: "'This is about a judgment call and the character of House Republicans, who stood with Trump for so long when he was making all these ugly attacks against women and immigrants and all these groups,' said DCCC spokeswoman Meredith Kelly. 'They didn't stop him when they could have.'"

MEANWHILE, DOWN IN FLORIDA... Trump continued his barrage of attacks against House Speaker Paul Ryan Wednesday, accusing him and other Republican leaders of turning their backs on him as part of some "sinister" backroom deal. But even Trump's strongest supporters on Capitol Hill are urging him to back off of Ryan and focus on beating Clinton. "The focus of our efforts need to be on the enemy, not self-inflicted fire," said one source describing a call between congressional Trump supporters and his campaign Wednesday. Rachael and I with the story: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=64f5976463ad28c1441f6e6a7b6c2b3039ba41d164bb2e9ba6a9503951a3c595

With everything going on Wednesday, Ryan released a public statement but not about Trump. Instead, Ryan spoke out about a top Clinton aide's comments about Catholics and evangelicals, revealed in a WikiLeaks email dump. "All Americans of faith should take a long, hard look at this and decide if these are the values we want to be represented in our next president," he said in the statement. (Remember that time Trump called the Pope "disgraceful" in February?). Ryan's spokesman referred Huddle to the Trump campaign for all questions related to the GOP nominee.

THE TRAFICANT EFFECT- "Countless former Democrats in Ohio's blue-collar Mahoning Valley are transferring their adoration for the late Democratic U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump," writes the AP's Julie Carr Smyth from Youngstown, Ohio.

'He's our criminal': "The area's anti-establishment electorate cheers politicians who ruffle feathers, and brushes off criminal activity - even prison time like that which Traficant served for taking bribes and kickbacks - as a cost of doing business. 'They look at it as, "Jim Traficant may be a criminal, but he's our criminal,"' said filmmaker Eric Murphy, who grew up in the valley and recently released the documentary, 'Traficant: The Congressman of Crimetown.'"

GEORGIA HEADED TOWARD A RUNOFF? Sen. Johnny Isakson could be looking at a runoff if he doesn't garner more than 50 percent of the vote in November, reports Simone Pathé for Roll Call. "The competitiveness of the presidential race in this traditionally red state, combined with the fact that Isakson is running in a three-way race, makes winning a majority on Election Day harder for him. If he doesn't, he and the likely second-place finisher, Democrat Jim Barksdale, will square off in a Jan. 10 runoff."

WEDNESDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER- Andrew Shine was the first to correctly guess that President George W. Bush had 33 percent (or 4) of his vetoes overridden by Congress.

TODAY'S TRIVIA- Andrew has today's question: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump argued over the significance of Abraham Lincoln at the debate on Sunday night, but this was far from the first time politicians have disagreed over memorializing our 16th president.

Which congressman blocked the proposal to construct the Lincoln Memorial in West Potomac Park as it stands today for nearly a decade? The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in tomorrow's Huddle. Get at me: hcaygle@politico.com

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