The fallout from Trump’s speech was almost immediate, with some of Trump’s few Hispanic supporters expressing anger, disgust, and betrayal. Within hours, surrogates began their own softening, wondering whether they could still support the candidate.

Jacob Monty, who was a member of Trump’s National Hispanic Advisory Council, promptly resigned, blasting the candidate in a Facebook post:

Alfonso Aguilar, president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, tweeted that he felt “disappointed and misled.” Aguilar was a Trump critic who came around, betting that Trump was developing a more circumspect plan. “It’s so disappointing because we feel we took a chance, a very risky chance,” he told Politico. “We decided to make a big U-turn to see if we could make him change. We thought we were moving in the right direction … we’re disappointed. We feel misled.”

Ramiro Peña, another member of the council, also ripped the speech, saying he believed Trump lost the election Wednesday night. “The ‘National Hispanic Advisory Council’ seems to be simply for optics and I do not have the time for energy for a scam,” he wrote an in email obtained by Politico.

Aguilar, Peña, and Monty’s journey from hope to disillusionment offers a mirror of the journey taken by immigration hardliners like Ann Coulter. The conservative pundit is touring behind a book called In Trump We Trust, in which she wrote, “There’s nothing Trump could do that won’t be forgiven. Except change his immigration policies.” Just as Coulter kicked off her book tour, though, Trump started talking about a “softening.” Without concretely reversing anything, he started asking questions about whether mass deportation really made sense. He criticized President Dwight Eisenhower’s “Operation Wet Back,” a 1950s program of mass deportations.

Coulter and others howled in anger and confusion, but Trump seemed to be embarking on an attempt at outreach. Not to Hispanics, by and large; he’s already set to lose that group badly on Election Day. No, the more likely target for Trump’s “softening” was white, educated voters. While Trump does well among white working-class voters, he’s underperforming among those who are better off, who seem to view his rhetoric as too coarse and lacking in compassion.

But what the last week showed was Trump didn’t have a good way to square that circle. He couldn’t effectively stick to a hardline immigration policy, the heart of his presidential run, while also softening. In short, Trump had to choose between disappointing Coulter and Aguilar, and he chose to disappoint Al over Ann. He even specifically praised Eisenhower’s deportations Wednesday night.

Some indication of the electoral toxicity of Trump’s stance is the fact that neither of Arizona’s Republican senators decided to attend the speech. John McCain, who is up for reelection this year, has grudgingly endorsed and stuck with Trump, despite the nominee mocking his capture in Vietnam. Jeff Flake, however, has been an outspoken critic of Trump’s. Typically Republican territory, Arizona is considered a possible swing state this year for the first time since 1996, and Hillary Clinton’s campaign announced a “six-figure” television ad buy there on Thursday.