Democratic legislative candidate Felicia French, who just returned from volunteering as a nurse on the Navajo Nation for a month, went back to a campaign that couldn’t look more different than the one she ran in 2018 or expected to run this year.

Instead of traveling her vast legislative district to meet voters at their doorsteps, French and her campaign team are canvassing from their couches and kitchen tables, trying to build connections with voters over a phone line. They expect to continue running an entirely virtual campaign for the foreseeable future — at least until Arizona’s new COVID-19 cases begin trending downward and stabilize.

Meanwhile, the Republican she expects to face in November, sitting state Sen. Sylvia Allen, has been traversing Legislative District 6, pressing palms with voters in cafés and VFW halls, for more than a month. Allen faces a primary challenge from fellow Republican Wendy Rogers, whose campaign has raised nearly eight times as much money. If Allen wins the primary race, she will campaign opposite French, who lost a House race in 2018 by just 600 votes, in the general election.

The Senate race epitomizes the contrasting approaches adopted by candidates from the two major parties in this most unusual of campaign seasons. While Democrats statewide choose to campaign digitally, filling party event calendars with invites to canvass from the couch or join video calls, many Republicans opted for the traditional campaign route as soon as — or, in some cases, before — Gov. Doug Ducey lifted his stay-at-home order on May 15.

A Democratic opposition research group is now seeking to capitalize on these differences to paint Republicans as recklessly endangering people’s health.

But Democratic candidates worry that their physical absence on the campaign trail diminishes their ability to connect with voters and cedes ground to their opponents.

For French, the decision to stay off the in-person campaign trail is a simple one. She’s a nurse, and still in a self-imposed quarantine after a month nursing COVID-19 patients on the Navajo Nation.

“I just can’t in good conscience as a nurse go out there in public and possibly risk exposing anybody to COVID-19, or getting it and carrying it on again,” she said. “To me, it’s a public health issue. It’s a consideration of others issue.”

But she worries that voters — particularly the independents and moderate Republicans she’ll have to convince in a district where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 10,000 — will view her decision to only campaign digitally as a sign of weakness.

“Some people think of it as, ‘Oh they’re cowardly’ or ‘They’re not willing to get out, make the effort,’” French said. “It’s a catch-22, a double-edged sword for me. As a nurse, I can’t in good conscience do that, but others may paint it like I’m just not willing to do the work.”

Kathy Knecht, a Democratic candidate for the state House in a district that includes parts of Sun City, Peoria and Glendale, similarly described her decision to continue virtual campaigning as a way to protect constituents. Meanwhile, Republican candidates Sen. Rick Gray of Sun City and Rep. Kevin Payne of Peoria have resumed in-person campaign events and recently headlined a fundraiser at a Phoenix bar.

“Sun City’s in the heart of my legislative district,” Knecht said. “So there’s a large population of that vulnerable age, and we just decided that it’s in the best interest of our community at large if we’re part of the solution, if we’re helping to flatten the curve. In the long run, that’s going to be better for our friends and neighbors, and it’s going to be better for the local businesses in our community.”

Knecht ran as independent against Gray in 2018 and surprised political watchers when she narrowed a double-digit performance gap in previous general elections to just over four points. Her performance put LD21 on the map for Democrats in 2020, and her party views the unexpected retirement of state Rep. Tony Rivero, R-Peoria, as improving her chances this year.

It remains to be seen if Democrats’ digital-only game is going to be effective against Republican candidates who have not limited themselves to the same strategy. Candidates like Knecht and French hope voters will remember their interactions in previous campaigns, and understand they would be out on the trail if they thought it is safe.

“If anybody looked at my canvassing time before this, I was out there all the time,” French said. “Even when I was running for House, I was in the middle of trailer parks in Tusayan, where there was one trailer per mile. I was out there, driving up and going to the doors canvassing. It’s not that I have a lack of desire or willingness to do this, it’s my desire to protect the public.”

Democrats are getting some help from American Bridge, a Democratic opposition research group that is trying to use proof of in-person campaign events to shame several Republican incumbents, including Allen, her seatmate Walt Blackman, and Glendale Rep. Anthony Kern.

In an email, American Bridge spokeswoman Katie Parrish said it’s an effective line of attack with reports of new cases and hospitalizations on the rise.

“These Republican state lawmakers have downplayed the severity of this pandemic since the very beginning,” she said. “Now, they’re putting their own re-election bids ahead of the health of Arizonans. It’s reckless and irresponsible.”

Another target is Phoenix Sen. Kate Brophy McGee, who gave a speech at a Greater Phoenix Republican Women event on June 10. Brophy McGee insists that the physical event is an outlier, noting the group had suspended its monthly meetings in April and May because of the COVID-19 pandemic, thought it was safe to resume in June and has since cancelled its July meeting after cases again spiked.

Before case numbers began increasing again, Brophy McGee had scheduled a June 13 yard sign pickup and charity lemonade stand at her campaign headquarters, but that turned into a curbside sign pickup instead.

As long as cases continue increasing, she’s going to stay away from in-person events, she said.

“I understand the need to get back to the campaign trail,” Brophy McGee said. “I [also] understand the data that’s going on with the increase in cases.”

In the geographically expansive district that is Legislative District 6, Allen, R-Snowflake, believes there is no risk of spreading the disease as long as people with symptoms stay home. She said she isn’t sick and no one who is visibly sick has showed up to her campaign events, so it’s up to voters to decide whether to meet her in person.

“I believe that if people are sick they need to stay home, and the Navajo County Health Department has stressed that you’re not contagious unless you have the symptoms of COVID,” Allen said.

She added there is only one circumstance under which she would return to campaigning by phone.

“Well, if there was another shutdown,” she said. “But we’re not in a shutdown right now.”