The Democratic Party was fracturing as a snowball of defectors called for President Joe Biden to pass the torch and leave the race. Then, his Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, was nearly killed.

Now, as bipartisan calls for unity in the wake of a failed assassination attempt on Trump grow, talk among Democrats about replacing Biden at the top of the ticket has largely subsided — for now.

Biden’s allies and vocal defenders in Congress say now is the time to coalesce around their de facto nominee as a united GOP begins its Republican National Convention.

“I think President Biden is the strongest candidate the Democrats have,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. “I think he has a very, very effective record that he can run on.”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), a longtime Biden ally and a co-chair of the president’s reelection campaign, agreed with Sanders.

“We need to get through both of these conventions with a more respectful and constructive tone and recognize what Senator Sanders said, that while we have huge issues at stake in this election, they need to be more boring and less troubling,” Coons said in a separate interview on the same network.

Prior to the attempt on Trump’s life at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Biden was defiant in his refusal to exit the race, even as the number of Democrats openly wanting him to drop out swelled to 19. Countless others have expressed concern about his electability after his disastrous debate performance but stopped short of saying he should bow out.

But the period of calm, similar to the eye of a hurricane, is likely to be temporary among Democrats.

“It quiets it down because no one is going to make any harsh moves while this is going on until this gets itself through the political system,” said Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf, who has advised former President Bill Clinton and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “Anything that looks harsh just adds to the wrong tenor of the moment … It’s only another time before we go back to our normal behavior.”

Evidence was already on display of Democratic woes reemerging at the forefront.

Center-left House Democrats held a tense phone conversation with Biden on Saturday prior to Trump being grazed by a bullet fired by the would-be assassin. At one point, Biden reportedly began shouting during a tangent levied at Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) for expressing doubts about his leadership.

On Sunday, Crow didn’t hold back on still amplifying those anxieties on CBS’s Face the Nation.

“I do believe right now, if — unless there’s a major change, that there is a high risk that we lose this election,” he said. “We want to see a change. And that’s what the questions that we’re asking are about.”

Crow insisted the party has “not been fractured” and emphasized the urgency of their dilemma.

“We don’t have a lot of time, but we do have some time to answer those questions, have that tough debate. And that’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “Then we will decide, together, the best path to go forward.”

Democrats have swapped their attacks on Trump as a “threat to democracy” with calls for unity. But how long the pivot lasts and whether it spurs more permanent changes in campaign strategy is yet to be seen as both parties work to tamp down the political rhetoric.

In his latest remarks on the attempted killing of his political opponent, Biden said in an Oval Office address Sunday evening that the country must “lower the temperature in politics” and reject violence.

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He also made clear he’ll continue to campaign this week and counter the messaging about him at the RNC.

“I have no doubt they’ll criticize my record and offer their own vision for this country. I’ll be traveling this week making the case for our record and the vision, my vision of the country,” the president said. “I’ll continue to speak out strongly for our democracy, stand up for our Constitution and the rule of law to call for action at the ballot box. No violence on our streets. That’s how democracy should work.”