WASHINGTON — Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Demo­c­rat Joe Biden have emerged from their pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nat­ing con­ven­tions with each can­di­date believ­ing he has a head of steam. Trump’s job approval rat­ings and stand­ing in polls are per­ilous­ly low for an incum­bent, but Biden and oth­er Democ­rats vivid­ly remem­ber 2016, when Trump made an against-all-odds Octo­ber come­back and defeat­ed Hillary Clinton.

Five key ques­tions as the 2020 cam­paign moves toward the fall home stretch:

What will a COVID-19 campaign look like?

Expect a flur­ry of trav­el and speech­es as the can­di­dates spend the next nine weeks des­per­ate­ly try­ing to move the nee­dle and win new votes against the back­drop of a glob­al pandemic.

Trump is set to launch an aggres­sive trav­el sched­ule with mul­ti­ple events a week, accord­ing to advis­ers. After an are­na ral­ly in Tul­sa, Okla­homa, ear­ly this sum­mer drew a pal­try crowd, his cam­paign has set­tled on a new for­mat in the age of the coro­n­avirus: pack­ing small­er crowds into open-air air­port hangars. The cam­paign has also been hand­ing out masks at its events and, on Fri­day, told atten­dees they would be manda­to­ry, per local reg­u­la­tions. He’s also plan­ning a series of pol­i­cy speech­es and is expect­ed to con­tin­ue to use the pow­ers of his office — includ­ing sign­ing exec­u­tive orders and issu­ing par­dons — to help his prospects.

Biden is plan­ning to ramp up trav­el to bat­tle­ground states after Labor Day after spend­ing most of the spring and sum­mer at his home in Wilm­ing­ton, Delaware, hold­ing most­ly vir­tu­al events, with only occa­sion­al trav­el to tight­ly con­trolled gath­er­ings. Cam­paign co-chair Cedric Rich­mond said the for­mer vice pres­i­dent will be active but empha­sized that Biden’s events still will fol­low pub­lic health guide­lines. That means no indoor, crowd­ed ral­lies and lots of mask-wear­ing. Expect plen­ty of round­ta­bles, meet-and-greets and ques­tion-and-answer ses­sions. If there are larg­er gath­er­ings, the dri­ve-in par­ty out­side Biden’s nom­i­na­tion accep­tance address could be the blueprint.

Whose version of the other convinces more voters?

Trump will con­tin­ue try­ing to win back sub­ur­ban, female and old­er vot­ers, and win over inde­pen­dents and peo­ple who didn’t vote four years ago, by paint­ing the elec­tion as a stark choice between law and order and anar­chy and between a rad­i­cal, social­ist takeover and eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty. Nev­er mind that Biden has spent decades in the polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment and Cal­i­for­nia Sen. Kamala Har­ris, his run­ning mate, is a for­mer pros­e­cu­tor. Trump will use every scare tac­tic he can muster.

If his 2016 race is any indi­ca­tion, expect Trump to launch a scorched-earth strat­e­gy if he feels he’s los­ing come Octo­ber. Real­iz­ing his only shot then was to dri­ve up Clinton’s unfa­vor­able rat­ings to match his own, Trump’s cam­paign used every trick they could think of, includ­ing invit­ing women who accused Bill Clin­ton of rape and unwant­ed sex­u­al advances to appear at one of the debates.

Attacks on Biden’s fam­i­ly? Accu­sa­tions he’s drugged up or senile? There is no line Trump won’t cross to win.

Biden will con­tin­ue to ham­mer Trump as a fun­da­men­tal threat to democ­ra­cy and try to make the case that the pres­i­dent is a self­ish, cor­rupt fig­ure inca­pable of empa­thy. Biden will sell him­self as a steady, expe­ri­enced hand with a pro­gres­sive pol­i­cy agen­da on issues includ­ing cli­mate action and crim­i­nal jus­tice — just not as pro­gres­sive as Trump tries to make him when he blasts Biden as the front man for a “rad­i­cal” takeover.

Biden’s cam­paign believes that he is enough of a known quan­ti­ty that vot­ers beyond Trump’s base sim­ply won’t buy the president’s descrip­tions of the for­mer vice pres­i­dent. If they are right, they see Trump’s base-dri­ven cam­paign as one that opens up a wide coali­tion — from pro­gres­sives who aren’t in love with Biden to anti-Trump mod­er­ates Repub­li­cans — for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic ticket.

Coronavirus and an October surprise?

Biden has defined his White House bid from the start as a moral and com­pe­ten­cy case against Trump. The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has only inten­si­fied the approach. Biden’s cam­paign believes there’s no cov­er for Trump with the coro­n­avirus death toll sur­pass­ing 180,000 and climb­ing, cas­es near­ing the 6 mil­lion mark, unem­ploy­ment hov­er­ing in dou­ble dig­its and Con­gress at an impasse on fur­ther eco­nom­ic aid.

In remarks Thurs­day before Trump’s nom­i­na­tion accep­tance speech, Har­ris sum­ma­rized the campaign’s think­ing: “Trump’s incom­pe­tence is noth­ing new,” she said, “but in Jan­u­ary of this year, it became dead­ly.” She said the incum­bent “failed at the most basic and impor­tant job of a pres­i­dent … to pro­tect us.”

Trump is hop­ing for a late devel­op­ment that could be a cam­paign game-chang­er: The release of a vac­cine that would mark the begin­ning of the end of the pan­dem­ic on his , before Amer­i­cans vote. His admin­is­tra­tion has been doing every­thing it can to accel­er­ate the process, along with hyp­ing new ther­a­peu­tics, even when it’s not clear they work. “We’ll pro­duce a vac­cine before the end of the year, or maybe even soon­er,” he said in his con­ven­tion keynote. It’s unclear, how­ev­er, whether sci­ence can deliv­er on his timetable.

How important are the debates

They’re cru­cial.

The con­ven­tions large­ly suc­ceed­ed in ful­fill­ing both cam­paigns’ objec­tives, so the debates — sched­uled for Sept. 29, Oct. 15 and Oct. 22 — will be the most high-pro­file oppor­tu­ni­ties for the can­di­dates to high­light con­trasts, ani­mate core sup­port­ers and cajole the small but crit­i­cal slice of per­suad­able voters.

Biden and his team say they rel­ish the idea of con­fronting Trump face to face. “The debates will give the V.P. the chance to call Trump on all of his B.S.,” Rich­mond said.

It also will be anoth­er chance for the 77-year-old Demo­c­rat to work to dis­man­tle Trump’s fram­ing that Biden is too old for the job. Rich­mond said that nar­ra­tive could back­fire on Trump, him­self a 74-year-old who reg­u­lar­ly man­gles syn­tax and offers mean­der­ing answers.

Some in Trump’s camp seem to agree. After months of try­ing to cast Biden as fee­ble and men­tal­ly dimin­ished, they’re now talk­ing up Biden’s abil­i­ties as a way to try to low­er expec­ta­tions on Trump’s side.

“Joe Biden is real­ly good at debates,” Trump cam­paign advis­er Jason Miller has been say­ing, por­tray­ing Biden as much more skilled than Hillary Clinton.

How long will it take to have a winner

It might not be on elec­tion night.

The cam­paigns and nation­al par­ties are engaged in law­suits across many states, argu­ing over rules for absen­tee vot­ing amid the pan­dem­ic, and that lit­i­ga­tion could con­tin­ue if results are close on Nov. 3.

Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats alike are push­ing their sup­port­ers to ask for absen­tee mail bal­lots, even as Trump con­tin­ues to ques­tion the integri­ty of the elec­tion before a sin­gle vote is cast.

Don’t expect that land­scape to change between now and Elec­tion Day — or even for sev­er­al weeks after­ward. Trump has refused to say whether he’ll accept the results if he los­es, and Clin­ton has warned Biden not to con­cede if the elec­tion is remote­ly close.

One thing is clear, though: The Con­sti­tu­tion sets Inau­gu­ra­tion Day as Jan. 20, and bar­ring cat­a­stroph­ic devel­op­ments, either Trump or Biden will take the oath of office that day.

Bar­row report­ed from Atlanta.