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This past spring, President Donald Trump began a full-fledged assault on voting by mail, tweeting, retweeting and railing about massive fraud and rigged elections with scant evidence.

Then the Republican apparatus got to work backing up the president.

In the weeks since, Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee have taken to the courts dozens of times as part of a $20 million effort to challenge voting rules, including filing their own lawsuits in several battleground states, including Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Nevada. And around the time Trump started musing about delaying the election last week, aides and outside advisers began scrambling to ponder possible executive actions he could take to curb mail-in voting — everything from directing the postal service to not deliver certain ballots to stopping local officials from counting them after Election Day.

The actions can only make so much difference before November — elections are mostly run at the state and local level, and are subject to congressional authority. And some fellow Republicans are warning the president privately and publicly that attempts to restrict mail-in ballots could actually hurt the GOP in November, scaring Republicans from voting remotely even if they also refuse to vote in person during a pandemic. New polling has fueled these concerns.

But the flurry of activity is buoying the president in other ways. Namely, it has allowed Trump to present himself as a fighter on an issue that many of his most fervent supporters have taken up in the last few months.

Trump fans, said John Fredericks, a conservative radio host who serves on the Trump campaign’s advisory committee, “think Trump is going to win legitimately, but the Democrats are trying to steal the election by manipulating mail-out ballots. They want the president to jawbone enough so there’s a level of outrage to get rid of these ballots.”

Just because Trump’s claims of rampant mail-in voting fraud aren’t supported by evidence doesn’t mean election experts aren’t concerned about problems holding a presidential election during a pandemic. It’s unknown whether the United States Postal Service can handle a surge of mail-in ballots in a timely fashion, and other officials have cautioned about long lines and a shortage of workers at in-person polling stations, which have been limited during the coronavirus outbreak.

Some have predicted the crush of remote voting could mean a final winner in the presidential race between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden won’t be known for days or even weeks. Democrats are pushing for $25 billion for USPS in the next coronavirus recovery bill to help address those concerns, but it remains a source of disagreement with Republicans.

There have already been some some notable delays in down-ballot elections during the pandemic, including one New York race this summer. Six weeks after a Democratic primary for a U.S. House seat, all of the ballots have yet to be counted.

“This is a rare case where the president is not overstating the case,” argued Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative group that has sued in North Carolina and Pennsylvania over the accuracy of voting rolls. “Frankly he’s understating the problem that I think we are going to face on Election Day. The system is going to break.”

Trump and his team are trumpeting these fears.

The Trump campaign is holding events touting its legal actions on voting rules. And privately, the White House is debating possible further action, according to two people familiar with the situation. The White House declined to comment on whether Trump would be signing an executive order on the issue.

“All Americans deserve an election system that is secure and President Trump is highlighting that Democrats’ plan for universal mail-in voting would lead to fraud,” said White House spokeswoman Sarah Matthews. “While Democrats continue to call for a radical overhaul of our nation’s voting system, President Trump will continue to work to ensure the security and integrity of our elections.”

Trump has spent months railing against mail-in voting as the pandemic raged and his poll numbers dropped nationally and in battleground states. Yet on Tuesday, Trump appeared to change his mind for one battleground state: Florida. He claimed that because the state’s two back-to-back Republican governors — Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott — had managed elections professionally. Sophia Lin Lakin, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, dubbed Trump’s action “hypocritical.”

Voting specialists also note that five states — Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington — already conduct elections entirely by mail with few problems. This fall, three additional states — California, Vermont and Nevada — plan to send ballots to registered voters because of the pandemic.

Voters in most other states can request an absentee ballot by mail without providing a reason. And numerous states are still reviewing their voting policies as coronavirus infections continue to rise.

Already, Democrats and left-leaning groups are pushing to make voting by mail easier and to educate voters about how to properly cast remote ballots. Republicans are fighting voting rule changes in 17 states, going to court 40 times, drawing on a recently doubled legal budget of $20 million. At the RNC and Trump campaign, 12 staff attorneys and several dozen more outside lawyers are working on the issue across the country, according to an RNC official.

Republicans have intervened to do just that in numerous states. In Iowa, they sued to prevent third parties from filling out personal information on absentee ballot requests. In Minnesota, they tried to prevent ballots from being sent to inactive voters. And in Nevada, the Trump campaign on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the state over a plan to send ballots to active registered voters this November.

“This unconstitutional legislation implements the exact universal vote-by-mail system President Trump has been warning against for months,” said Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser for the Trump campaign.

Republicans have already won some battles. A Democratic super-PAC and other left-leaning groups agreed to drop a lawsuit over voting rules in Florida after a judge refused to order changes immediately, including a request that the government cover postage costs for mail-in ballots. Another lawsuit seeking to extend the state’s absentee ballot deadline was dismissed in Pennsylvania

“All politicians are paranoid about potential fraud in their campaigns. And sometimes rightfully so,” said Pat McCrory, the former Republican governor of North Carolina, who blamed fraud when he lost his 2016 reelection bid by 10,000 votes out of more than 4.6 million ballots cast. “He knows states like Michigan and North Carolina — like last time — could be close.”

Republicans aren’t the only ones taking action on mail-in voting. Democrats and outside groups on both sides of the issue have similarly taken to the courts over voting rules — more than 160 lawsuits have been filed nationwide, according to election experts.

The potential problems with mail-in voting are varied and numerous. Voting rolls that determine who receives a ballot could be inaccurate, ballots could be sent to the wrong address or lost in the mail, or voters may have their ballot tossed out for not following directions, for not having a proper signature or for having a name that doesn’t exactly match information on file with election officials.

Democrats have argued these concerns can be addressed through funding, tweaks to the rules and voter education. Conversely, Republicans have cited them as reasons to limit mail-in voting.

“They’re absolutely exaggerating and overstating the fraud. It is not a rampant problem,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, deputy director at the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program, where he focuses on voting rights and elections. “It is not the existential threat that the president says it is.”

But states that allow voting by mail have spent years building the infrastructure necessary to handle both the outgoing and incoming ballots, said Hans von Spakovsky, who manages the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative.

“We’re only three months from the election,” said von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission. “To think states could do this by November is impractical.”

Trump, impatient with the slow nature of lawsuits, suggested last week that the November election be postponed, though he later claimed he was merely trying to highlight the possibility of fraud after he faced a backlash from even members of his own party. Only Congress can change the date of the election.

Since then, Trump has mused to aides about what executive orders, if any, he could sign to curb voting by mail.

“I have the right to do it,” Trump told reporters Monday. “We haven’t gotten there yet. We’ll see what happens.”

Yet even conservatives allies, including von Spakovsky, are skeptical Trump has the authority to intervene in elections. John Yoo, a senior Justice Department attorney under former President George W. Bush, agreed. Yoo has been advising the White House recently on unilateral actions Trump could take on immigration, health care and taxes. But he said it didn’t appear Trump could take significant executive action on mail-in voting

Some suggested Trump could try to stop local officials from counting remote ballots after Election Day and direct the Postal Service to not deliver certain ballots to voters using an emergency declaration, according to one of the people.

Paul Steidler, who studies the Postal Service at the right-leaning Lexington Institute, said the president can’t directly order the postmaster general to do anything, noting the Postal Service chief actually reports to a board of governors.

“He can’t order anything directly,” Steidler said. But others argued the postmaster general, a Trump ally and Republican fundraiser, might still be influenced by Trump’s statements.

Trump said Monday the Postal Service isn’t prepared for the onslaught of ballots. “How can the post office be expected to handle?” he asked. But Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told the Postal Service Board of Governors Friday the agency will do its job. “We will do everything we can to deliver election mail in a timely

Election experts said a more likely option for Trump would be sending federal officials into states under the guise of ensuring every vote is counted, citing the 15th Amendment or the Voting Rights Act.

Any of the moves would be immediately challenged in court.

“It would certainly be unprecedented to attempt to control any aspect of the election process,” said Richard Pildes, a professor of constitutional law at the New York University School of Law and leading expert on election law. “The courts would scrutinize any action closely.”

President Donald Trump is in an August, coronavirus-induced slump — and his team is feeling it.

The White House’s negotiations with Capitol Hill over a fourth economic stimulus package fell apart on Friday after three weeks of stalled talks, leaving aggrieved administration officials to suggest Trump just take unilateral action. The number of coronavirus deaths continues to rise, and Trump has yet to present a promised strategy to curb the spread of the virus. Trump and his team are having trouble settling on a daily message — or finding a way to effectively wound Joe Biden, the president’s presumptive 2020 rival.

It’s all added up to an ever-growing sense of doom and gloom about the president’s political future.

Recent national polls show Trump trailing Biden by anywhere from 3 to 10 percentage points, with swing states like Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania increasingly up for grabs. Some Republican donors and outside groups are even focusing their attention away from the White House to holding on to the Republican majority in the Senate, according to three Republicans close to the White House. Several Trump allies acknowledge if the election was held today, Trump would likely lose.

“It is kind of like Groundhog Day,” said one of the Republicans close to the White House. “You think it’s better, but then it is not.”

Trump’s allies and political advisers acknowledge the polling on Trump is not great but insist he can overcome the setback. A top Trump campaign official said the campaign was focused on its own internal polls, which the official said shows Trump either matched with or ahead of Biden in the 17 key states the campaign is monitoring. The official declined to offer more specifics.

One political adviser argued that If Trump can close the gap with Biden to just 4 percentage points in the coming months, he could win — even if it is by a small margin. The person noted Trump was similarly behind in the polls in August 2016 before prevailing in November.

“Trump is better at running behind than ahead because it makes him more aggressive. He won’t take it for granted,” said Dan Eberhart, a prominent Trump donor who runs an oil drilling company. “The lesson in 2016 supposedly was that the media and polling was wrong, but I throw away that line of thinking. The lesson I draw away from 2016 was Trump didn’t want to lose. He did not want to be a loser, so that motivated him.”

But with just three months until the presidential election, numerous Republicans and administration officials are not sure Trump will be able to pull off another upset win.

His administration’s handling of the coronavirus has hurt his standing with senior citizens, suburban voters, independents and women — and if schools do not reopen this fall, it will offer another illustration of how the U.S. has fallen behind other developed countries in combating the virus.

For months, top White House officials have battled over how to message the administration’s coronavirus work — arguing over the best language and debating over whether to hold Covid-19-specific briefings. Yet officials say the same level of attention has not been applied to the actual solutions associated with fighting a pandemic.

Several current and former senior administration officials said they feel the White House is obsessed with the president’s image at the expense of making meaningful policy decisions — on either fighting the virus or successfully working with Congress to pass another stimulus bill.

“They are so concerned with the optics right now, but where is the substance these days?” said one former senior administration official. “Who is working on the policy ideas we will tackle in the second term? Instead, we are too busy worrying about the messaging.”

One White House official said aides are working on the policy process for a second-term agenda, which will include continuing to respond to the coronavirus, rebuilding the economy, securing better trade deals and standing up for law and order — all while continuing to push policy priorities through executive orders.

The same aide added that stalled negotiations on the Hill are Democrats’ fault.

Morale inside the White House remains low — a throwback, officials say, to the early chaotic days under then-chief of staff Reince Priebus, when backbiting consumed officials’ time. These days, decisions are increasingly made by a tiny circle of top advisers, like Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law; Hope Hicks, the longtime Trump communications aide; and chief of staff Mark Meadows — leaving whole offices inside the White House sidelined.

The Office of Legislative Affairs, for instance, has largely been excluded from the negotiations playing out on Capitol Hill — even though its entire job consists of coordinating with lawmakers and their staff.

Several White House and administration officials have also started to reach out to other Republicans to try to find jobs in the private sector as quickly as possible — both because they feel their roles inside the White House have diminished and because there is consternation that they need to find new gigs in case Trump loses in November, drying up the market for Trump-connected aides.

“Anyone who underestimates or writes off President Trump does so at their own peril,” said White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere. “The president and his entire administration are focused every day on keeping the promises he’s made the American people, defeating the China virus, opening our economy safely and responsibly preparing for a second term that will ensure America is safer, stronger and more prosperous than ever before.”

A campaign official disputed the notion that anyone inside its headquarters feels a sense of pessimism about the president’s prospects.

“There are 86 one-day campaigns left in the race, and even fewer if you consider early voting,” said Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign communications director. “Every day there is a game-day mentality inside the campaign. If we win more days than Joe Biden wins, President Trump will be reelected. It’s as simple as that.”

Several Trump allies and aides are happy with the new team running the campaign, including campaign manager Bill Stepien and senior adviser Jason Miller. Together, the duo brings a tactical knowledge of individual battleground states, as well as a good sense of how to sell ideas to a mercurial Trump.

The Trump campaign is also starting to settle on its message to hit Biden, attempting to define him as a candidate who will do the far-left’s bidding if he wins the White House.

The campaign is focused on rolling out advertising in states like Georgia, Ohio and Florida — all early voting states, and an official said the team has been heartened by Trump’s continued and strong fundraising and the recent drop in unemployment. Advisers are hopeful Biden’s upcoming vice presidential pick will give them new fodder to attack the Democratic ticket as overly progressive or part of the “deep state.”

“We are in a better position now than we were two weeks ago, and there are still 17 weeks left,” said another Trump political adviser. “The minute Biden announces a VP, there is no more hiding. That is the best moment for the Trump campaign to talk about this presidential campaign and make the contrast.”

Other Republicans argue that unless Trump becomes a more disciplined candidate, he will continue to fall behind in the polls — and staying on message has never been Trump’s strong suit.

Some outside conservative groups and donors are increasingly turning their attention and money away from Trump and toward maintaining Republican control of the Senate. But longtime operatives say it will be impossible to divorce Trump’s policies, proclamations and tweets from the fate of Republican senators, several of whom now occupy vulnerable seats in Colorado, Maine and Iowa.

“Back in the winter and spring, donors poured everything into Trump,” said a second Republican close to the White House. “But now all they are thinking about is the Senate. The Senate is the Alamo right now.”

When President Donald Trump connected by phone last week with Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson — perhaps the only person in the party who can cut a nine-figure check to aid his reelection — the phone call unexpectedly turned contentious.

The 87-year-old casino mogul had reached out to Trump to talk about the coronavirus relief bill and the economy. But then Trump brought the conversation around to the campaign and confronted Adelson about why he wasn’t doing more to bolster his reelection, according to three people with direct knowledge of the call. One of the people said it was apparent the president had no idea how much Adelson, who’s donated tens of millions of dollars to pro-Trump efforts over the years, had helped him. Adelson chose not to come back at Trump.

When word of the call circulated afterward, Republican Party officials grew alarmed the president had antagonized one of his biggest benefactors at a precarious moment in his campaign. They rushed to smooth things over with him, but the damage may have been done.

Adelson’s allies say it’s unclear whether the episode will dissuade the Las Vegas mogul — long regarded as a financial linchpin for Trump’s reelection — from helping the president down the home stretch.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The president needs the money. With less than three months until the election, he is overwhelmed by a flood of liberal super PAC spending that his party has failed to match. Since this spring, outside groups supporting Joe Biden have outspent their pro-Trump counterparts nearly 3-to-1, an influx that’s helped to erase the president’s longstanding financial advantage.

Now, Republican leaders are pleading to billionaires for help. Trump advisers are pining for new outside groups to form, and the White House is growing anxious to see what Adelson, who has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into Republican super PACs over the past decade, will do.

“It’s important that the word get out to donors that we need the super PACs and we need them to step up to the plate,” said Club for Growth President David McIntosh, whose group is poised to launch a $5 million TV campaign next week. “There hasn’t been the urgency on the super PAC side. But now we’re seeing that you’ve got to take care of that, too.”

The avalanche of spending on the left isn’t expected to end anytime soon. Pro-Biden groups have reserved over $70 million on the TV airwaves between now and the election, while Trump-allied groups have booked just $42 million, according to the media tracking firm Advertising Analytics.

The Trump-blessed America First Action has been outraised and outspent by the leading pro-Biden Super PAC Priorities USA, which has been running an array of blistering commercials hitting Trump over his response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Republicans point to an array of reasons for America First’s struggles. Some of the president’s aides point out that, much to their frustration, he has shown less interest in super PAC fundraising than Barack Obama did ahead of his successful 2012 reelection. He’s also shown a reluctance to do the kind of glad-handing, cold-calling, and grooming of billionaires needed to cultivate a well-funded super PAC.

Others say big Republican givers are holding back checks because of the potential business fallout of being a major Trump contributor. After word surfaced that fitness company executive Stephen Ross was hosting a Hamptons fundraiser for Trump, patrons at his Equinox and SoulCycle chains staged a boycott.

With Trump trailing badly, some donors are more interested in bankrolling efforts to save the GOP’s Senate majority. Among the contributors who’ve cut checks to the super PAC for Senate Republicans but not Trump’s are hedge fund manager Paul Singer, investor Charles Schwab, and real estate developer Mel Sembler.

Others say there is simply exhaustion with Trump and disgust at his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor who has contributed to America First Action, pointed to what he described as an “enthusiasm gap among super PAC donors.”

“We are getting clobbered,” he said. “The left-leaning super PACs are bringing a lot more air support to team Biden than the ones on the right are bringing to team Trump, unfortunately.”

The president’s advisers blame America First for its struggles. They point to its decision to wait until spring to take on Biden and to its $4 million investment on a TV commercial that spotlighted Vice President Mike Pence but made no mention of Trump. The move infuriated the president’s advisers; on the morning the commercial was launched, a Trump adviser reached out to a POLITICO reporter unprompted to blast the move.

America First Action President Brian Walsh said the organization’s nonprofit arm had chosen to feature Pence to highlight remarks he had made at an event it had hosted focused on the economic recovery.

“No other outside group has raised or spent more to help reelect Donald Trump. No other outside group has stood with our president since day one. Period,” Walsh said. “We have been on the air, online and in mailboxes since April and continue to be so today.”

While America First Action has the White House’s imprimatur, ongoing concerns about the group have triggered conversations about whether an alternative super PAC should form. While Adelson is unlikely to donate to America First Action, allies say, he is open to funding another pro-Trump outfit.

But some Republicans say that having multiple super PACs could cause confusion among donors about which outfit to support.

Christopher Ekstrom, a Dallas investor who backed Ted Cruz’s 2016 primary campaign, recalled that the Texas senator had an array of super PACs. Some potential givers, he recalled, wound up not giving to any of them.

“Team Trump was wise to centralize their super PAC after his victory and prevent their super PAC from being Balkanized,” said Ekstrom, who has given over $20,000 to pro-Trump causes this election cycle.

Republicans are confronting an array of liberal groups, ranging from Priorities USA to American Bridge to Future Forward, all of which have booked millions of dollars in TV spending. Even as Biden has struggled to keep pace with Trump on the fundraising front, there are concerns in Republican circles that the liberal organizations could do damage to the president.

Republican strategist Ken Spain noted that “neither candidate will lose because of lack of resources at this point,” but added: “The Democratic donor class has coalesced and built a rival apparatus to that of the Trump campaign and its allies.”

With both sides flush with cash, there will be no shortage of TV commercials from either side. Alex Castellanos, a veteran Republican ad maker who helped to steer a pro-Trump super PAC in 2016, said voters would be more focused on the individual performances of Trump and Biden.

“The most powerful media driver in a presidential [campaign] is the candidate. The candidate makes news and drives the agenda. That’s the good news for Donald Trump,” Castellanos said. “Sometimes, that’s the bad news for Trump, too.”