since at least May, Donald Trump’s campaign had been anticipating the possibility that Joe Biden would drop out of the presidential race. That once-unlikely prospect has come to pass and yet all Trump and his allies seem to have to throw at presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris are warmed-over racist and sexist attacks and some nonsense about how her candidacy has subverted the will of her party’s voters—weak, desperate lines that seem to underscore the sense of agitation that has suddenly set in on a right-wing that expected to cakewalk back into power.

Trump just capped a weekslong victory lap following Biden’s dismal June debate with a coronation party in Milwaukee. But now he finds himself alternating between suggesting the president may not remember quitting the race—“It’s not over!” he wrote Sunday night—and grousing over the GOP having to “spend time and money on fighting” a man no longer running. “Shouldn’t the Republican Party be reimbursed for fraud?” he asked, a gripe echoed by his adviser, Stephen Miller, in a Fox News appearance Monday that mostly served as a reminder of how much of a tiresome whiner he is.

Trump and his surrogates have tried to dress up some of their self-pitying as concern for democratic norms, because voters previously selected Biden as the nominee. Even though that primary process lacked a serious challenger, polls suggest most voters wanted a new candidate, and the delegates Biden released are now behind Harris. “That is a threat to democracy,” Trump running mate J.D. Vance said during a tepid Ohio rally Monday, after being introduced by a state-level Republican who suggested a “civil war” may be necessary if Trump does not win in November. (The Ohio lawmaker, George Lang, later apologized for his “divisive” remarks.)

And then, of course, there’s the inevitable bile aimed at Harris as she becomes the first Black and South Asian woman to lead a major party ticket: “The media propped up [Biden], lied to the American people for three years, and then dumped him for our DEI vice president,” Republican Representative Tim Burchett wrote Monday. “When you go down that route, you take mediocrity,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju. “She was a DEI hire,” Burchett continued. “Her record is abysmal at best.”

That’s not even a dog whistle; that’s just explicit bigotry. “Is that appropriate?” Raju asked House Speaker Mike Johnson. “Her ethnicity, her gender, have nothing to do with this whatsoever,” Johnson said, telling reporters that the election will be about “policies, not personalities.”

But personality is, as always, the only real pitch Trump has, as his convention last week made clear. Just a few days ago, that seemed like it would be enough to get him over the finish line: His party was emboldened, and the mood among Democrats had become funereal. Now? Democrats seem united around Harris. Their enthusiasm has been reflected in a historic fundraising surge. And Republicans, well, they may no longer be quite as cocky, with The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta reporting that some have even begun questioning Trump’s selection of Vance—a right-winger who might carry the MAGA torch forward, but who may have limited appeal to undecided voters.

Harris faces an uphill climb still—and a hundred-plus days of attacks like these and worse, as Trump and his allies recalibrate a campaign they initially built around Biden and his age. Already, Republicans are working to hammer Harris over the border. But the vice president, who quickly secured enough delegate support for the Democratic nomination Monday, has already changed the dynamic of this race: Republicans spent much of the past month giddy at the potential for a rout in November. Now, at the very least, this is a real contest—one these once-demoralized Democrats really could win.