The clock is ticking. And it’s ticking away fast.

As I mentioned previously, the Trump assassination plot may have done more to save Biden than to help Trump, because it was a major story that broke up the mounting momentum among Dems to stop Biden.

Biden’s people were very nervous about the nomination even well before the debate and had planned a July virtual roll call to nominate him well ahead of the convention. The pretext for that was an Ohio ballot issue that Gov. DeWine had promised to fix, and that has now been fixed, but the virtual roll call is still moving forward. Anti-Biden Dems, which include major donors, a bunch of Obama vets, and a number of House Dems, are now urgently trying to stop the virtual roll call, but they may have as little as 96 hours.

The process will effectively begin when the rules committee of the Democratic National Convention meets on a video call at 11 a.m. on Friday, followed by another party group on Sunday. All of the more than 4,000 delegates are expected to begin casting their ballots as soon as Monday, a process that is likely to take about a week. After that, the committee is expected to quickly hold the roll call, a tradition that typically occurs on the convention floor but is being held virtually this year.

Anti-Biden Dems aren’t confident of fighting the roll call, their priority is to stop it in its tracks and provide more time for their pressure campaigns to work. They will still have options once the virtual roll call takes place, but it’s going to be even harder. That’s why Biden’s people are rushing it through.

The rules committee is a body of more than 180 delegates led by Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Leah Daughtry, a veteran party official. A majority of its members have deep ties to Mr. Biden and were vetted for their loyalty to him, making it unlikely that his nomination will face significant dissent.

“Governor Walz is honored to co-chair the committee and knows how important it is that Democrats have their nominee, President Biden, on the ballot in every state this November,” Teddy Tschann, a spokesman for Mr. Walz, said.

The process is rigged as it has been all along, but after the debate a number of Dems woke up. Too late.

The odds of stopping Biden have dropped sharply. But that could change in an instant if Biden has another public meltdown on the same level as the debate or if his condition changes for the worse. For the moment though he’s projecting an image of being old and feeble, but not completely confused and deranged. And if he can hold on to that, it is going to be really difficult for Dems to replace him.

The countdown begins now.