Republicans are already shaping their message around Kamala Harris

The Republican National Convention is officially in the books. Ostensibly, much of the setpieces throughout the convention were meant to attack President Joe Biden, who remains the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, even if Democrats are increasingly trying to shove him out.

On Thursday, ahead of former president Donald Trump’s speech, Montana Senator Jon Tester, the most vulnerable swing-state Democrat whose state voted for Trump by double digits, said Biden needed to leave. And on Friday, Senator Martin Heinrich, a Democrat from New Mexico, also said Biden needs to go. That is a stunning rebuke, given that Biden treated Tester with respect, even inviting him to the Oval Office when Barack Obama refused to do the same. But Heinrich is from a state that is now endangered because of Biden’s weak performance at the top of the ticket.

Biden re-election campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon, for her part insisted on Morning Joe on Friday morning that Biden is not leaving the race. Meanwhile, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive vanguard, warned on an Instagram Live that the same forces who want to boot Biden also want to kick out Vice President Kamala Harris.

But throughout the four days in Milwaukee, Republicans seemed to sense that Biden might be on the out and that Harris might replace him at the top of the ticket. And they were already preparing the talking points.

Even the speeches seemed to pivot ever so slightly as time went on. When Harris ran for the Democratic nomination for president, many progressives sneered at her record as a prosecutor, calling her a cop. Conversely, Republicans sought to label her as weak on crime, citing her quote about “reimagining how we do public safety