Yes, when the collusion ploy failed, they rolled out the phone call. If it wasn’t the that , it would be something else. They know they won’t win, but they simply can’t conduct normal government and business when they can’t use it to advance their agenda. Thus they’ll have constant investigations until the election. They know they’ll lose, but it would be worse if they had to compete on even turf, where their failing policies would be further exposed.
The collusion ploy didn’t fail. It perpetuated the illegitimacy of Trump as president, as this.will.