Ms. Collins’s Democratic opponent in Maine, Sara Gideon, is airing a 60-second ad that features highlights from a recent forum, conducted over Zoom. The grainy desktop camera resolution and awkward angles have come to define so many meetings happening these days. While many campaigns have focused on the front-line workers, the groups working to re-elect Mr. Trump have a different focus: Joe Biden. The Trump-aligned super PAC America First Action made its first foray into the election this month by announcing a $10 million buy, and spent just under $350,000 on two ads that seek to paint the former vice president’s past statements on China as problematic, with shaky allusions to the virus’s origins. There is, however, a brief defense of Mr. Trump in one ad, praising his decision to close travel from China in January, when a narrator proclaims, “President Trump took action.” Two seconds later, however, the ad’s focus returns to Mr. Biden.

It’s a relatively candid shot of Senator Mitch McConnell, a black-and-white image of the Republican majority leader emerging from behind a door, likely somewhere amid the Capitol complex. For 30 seconds, it is the only image the viewer sees. A very slow zoom crawls forward, as dramatic, ominous music tracks a narrator in the background.

With many Democrats focusing their criticism squarely on the White House, Mr. McConnell is also up for re-election. And his Democratic opponent, Amy McGrath, is attacking the majority leader for the federal government’s response to the pandemic.

The message: Being majority leader is an immensely powerful position, and Ms. McGrath is making the argument that Mr. McConnell has squandered his power in response to the coronavirus outbreak. As a narrator infers that Mr. McConnell is taking a “victory lap” on the response to the outbreak, the estimated death tolls and job losses scroll across the bottom of the screen.

The takeaway: The single photo and black-and-white tone evoke an aura of the Washington “back room deal” and infer that it wasn’t one made with the goal of combating the coronavirus. And in a media environment where continually scrolling doomsday headlines flash across the screen in a constant loop, pausing to focus on just a single picture could actually break through.