The Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy has been on life support for weeks now, half-heartedly propped up by a few Democrats and their Leftmedia allies, but after a fourth straight special election loss, some Democrats are suggesting pulling the plug on their scandal narrative. It has now become unquestionably apparent that the Democrats’ strategy of employing a scorched-earth anti-Trump obstructionist tactic is failing, and failing miserably. In fact, as Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) observed, “Our brand is worse than Trump.”

Democrats are now in the midst of a strategy pivot, not uncommon in the game of politics. As with any competition, those who find themselves losing the game must change tactics or risk greater defeat. With Donald Trump’s surprising election victory, Democrats were caught flat-footed, but they refused to relinquish the fight for the White House. They opted to double down on attacking Trump with the goal of delegitimizing his presidency at the very least and publicly entertaining the possibility of Nixon-like scandal leading to impeachment. This was a poor play on their part and served only to act as a distraction to the MSM, themselves and their constituents while exposing them to the majority of America as sore losers interested primarily in clawing for power.

Now Democrats are stepping out to do damage control. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) noted this week, “The fact that we had spent so much time talking about Russia … has been a distraction from what should be the clear contrast between Democrats and the Trump agenda, which is on economics.” Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) reiterated this talking point saying, “The shiny object which is Russia and the Trump administration is in many ways a smokescreen for Mitch McConnell and the Senate to do things they probably wouldn’t be able to get away with if the public and media were paying more attention. We’re guilty of that to some degree.”

Democrats are also working to pull the plug on their impeachment narrative, realizing it has only served to expose them as being blind partisans and uninterested in abiding by the choice of the people. So, how do Democrats back off their calls for impeaching Trump without giving ground on their anti-Trump bias? They vilify Vice President Mike Pence. Hence this statement from Sen. Al Franken: “Pence ran the transition and some of the very worst nominees, I felt … were Pence selections, clearly, I think. He’s ideological, I consider him a zealot, and I think that in terms of a lot of domestic policy certainly would be worse than Trump.” A convenient excuse, but make no mistake, if they really had enough evidence to impeach Trump they’d do it in a heartbeat.