The canceling of the Florida convention would appear, for now, to also play to the Democrats’ advantage. Mr. Biden and his aides no longer have to worry that his scaled-down virtual acceptance speech would look small and silly next to a full-blown speech by Mr. Trump, as Republicans had once hoped.

And the Democrats cut back their convention methodically and with no drama and little notice, calibrating to the worsening pandemic and to the cautions of medical professionals against large gatherings. By contrast, Mr. Trump and his party stumbled into this decision, a long and messy process that included a last-minute switch of the convention to Florida from North Carolina…

“The Republicans now have a month to put together a remote convention and the Democrats had a three-month head start,” Ms. Fowler said. ”And they have wasted a lot of money. It sort of reinforces the competence problems that this administration has been dealing with.”…

“The Trump strategy was to campaign as the strong man,” Mr. McKinnon said. While Mr. Biden was hidden “in a mask in a basement he would be stepping maskless into adoring crowds at a packed convention.”