Karl Rove, who served as an adviser to former President George W. Bush, warned Republicans that nominating Donald Trump could be a death wish for the party.
In a Wall Street Journal column published Friday, Rove acknowledged Trump's consistently strong standing among Republicans in the polls, and the impressively high percentage of backers -- 46 percent, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll -- who say they won't stray from Trump before the primaries.
Hitting Trump for his antics -- citing the Republican presidential candidate's beef with Fox News host Megyn Kelly and insults of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for being captured in Vietnam -- Rove lamented that there's seemingly no line Trump can cross to lose the backing of his loyal supporters, who "eat up stuff like that."
But in a matchup against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in the general election, Rove wrote, Trump would get "creamed." He called Trump a "dream candidate" for the Democratic Party.
"Although Mr. Trump’s antics may not drive away his current supporters, they make him unlikely to win the White House," he wrote.
The polls back up Rove's prediction: HuffPost Pollster, which aggregates all publicly available poll results, shows Trump getting trumped when matched up against both Clinton and her strongest opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Rove has long been a critic of Trump's antics. Earlier in December, he told New York magazine Trump doesn't have the chops to be the unifying candidate the party needs to win the general election.
"If you’re a candidate who has an 11 percent approval rating among Latinos, you’re not succeeding there. If you have a record of misogynist comments, that’s not going to be helpful," he said. "If you call all the people you’re running against losers, clowns, and dopes, that’s not the language of someone who unifies the party."
Those insults aren't just reserved for Trump's opponents in the 2016 race. In a Twitter spat last month, the Republican candidate called Rove a "dummy," a "biased dope" and a "total fool."
"Free advice @realDonaldTrump: get facts straight, accept legit criticism, develop thick skin, drop childish insults," Rove responded.
Read Rove's full column here.