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A campaign reshaped by the pandemic enters its final stages with tonight’s debate in Nashville.

A presidential campaign reshaped by the pandemic enters its final stages with tonight’s debate.

The debate stage at Belmont University in Nashville.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

With the last presidential debate happening tonight in Nashville, the contest between President Trump and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is entering its final chapter. And once again voters are being reminded just how completely the pandemic has upended this race for the White House.

In a normal election year, both candidates would leave Nashville for a nonstop swing through battleground states, packing their days with big rallies, appeals to both supporters and the curious who are trying to decide whom to support. Mr. Trump has pledged to keep on making live appearances in front of big crowds, in defiance of the counsel of medical experts.

But Mr. Biden will defer to the advice of health professionals, largely limiting his campaigning to smaller and more controlled events that respect the rules of social distancing and that have been his staple during this odd campaign.

Will that matter?

This is the time of election season when candidates make their closing arguments and implore supporters to turn out. Mr. Trump, in pushing ahead with his rallies, is well aware of how effective they can be at generating excitement among supporters, as he saw at his huge rallies in 2016.

George W. Bush demonstrated the power of showing up in 2004 when he arrived on Election Day for a rally in Ohio having made the correct calculation that the excitement and attention generated by a last-minute visit might pull him over the finish line. He defeated his Democratic rival, John F. Kerry, with just under 51 percent of the vote in Ohio.

But that does not necessarily mean that Mr. Biden is at a disadvantage in these final days. From the beginning of the coronavirus, he ran a constrained campaign in deference to the virus, with significantly less travel, fewer public events and even fewer news conferences. He drew some criticism, but it appears to be working to his benefit, if the polls are to be believed.

And one reason he has so much more money on hand than Mr. Trump does in these final weeks is that he had far fewer expenses. Those planes, motorcades, hotel rooms and catered meals add up.

Should Mr. Biden win, future presidential candidates might compare the Trump and Biden campaigns in the age of Covid as a case study in how to campaign in the digital age. All those trappings of the modern-day campaign — the blur of rallies, the fully catered chartered airplanes, the nights at Motel 6 (OK, at the Westin) — might not be needed to win the White House.

Adam Nagourney covers national politics and the 2020 election for The Times. Most recently he was the Los Angeles bureau chief, after serving eight years as the chief national political correspondent for The Times. He is the co-author of “Out for Good,” a history of the modern gay rights movement. More about Adam Nagourney

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