The Note: Contrasting images match competing themes in final election stretch

The TAKE with Rick Klein

This time next week -- give or take a few days, perhaps -- the images of the closing days of this election will be held out as evidence that of course things would turn out the way they did.

Thursday will bring both President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden to Tampa, Florida, for rallies just five days before Election Day.

Trump will draw an enormous crowd. He will almost certainly mock Biden for not doing the same -- hoping his ability to draw a crowd inspires enthusiasm among his supporters.

Biden will hold a "drive-in rally" where honks will be more prevalent than chants. He will almost certainly attack Trump for holding a massive public gathering in the midst of the pandemic -- hoping his choices match better with how voters are living their lives.

On one level, Trump and Biden have adapted their campaigns to the extraordinary circumstances of the moment. Considered another way, they are using images to say something more about themselves as leaders -- in how they view the severity of the crisis, and how a leader should act.

The numbers -- polling, early vote and even COVID-19 spikes -- point toward a favorable environment for Biden and his view of the race.

Trump's political career, though, has been built on a sense that he knows better than any numbers might suggest. If nothing else, as the campaign ends, he will act like he has from the start.

The RUNDOWN with MaryAlice Parks

Nearly half, or 49.2% of Florida's registered voters have already voted this year, meaning that both candidates are appealing to a smaller slice of potential votes as they campaign there Thursday.

The margin of registered Democrats who have voted early, compared to registered Republicans, is slowly closing too.

Nationwide, there is a dramatic uptick in early voting across almost all demographics, according to research compiled and analyzed by Target Early, and experts continue to think the country is headed towards a record turnout year.

Twice as many Hispanic voters have already cast their ballots compared to this time four years ago. Early voting is also up by over 2 million votes among Black voters compared to this time in 2016.

That said, African Americans are actually making up a slightly smaller share of the total early vote than they were this time four years ago. As a percentage of the early vote, white college-educated voters specifically are making up a much bigger slice of the entire early vote than they were in 2016.

More than 75 million people have already banked their ballots -- slightly more than half of the 136.8 million people who voted in 2016.

The TIP with John Verhovek

From the moment Joe Biden announced his presidential campaign, it was crystal clear that his eight years as Barack Obama's vice president would be a central part of his pitch to the American people for a term of his own. "When Barack and I..." was as nearly a common a phrase on the campaign trail for Biden as, "here's the deal."

Now in the waning days of a race that has seen Obama's successor call for him to be "locked up," Biden's campaign is banking once again on his loyal service to the party's most popular figure to put him over the top. When the two men appear together for the first time in person this cycle at a rally on Saturday in Michigan, Biden's campaign is hoping Obama is able to conjure up an effective combination of inspiration and nostalgia for voters who are undecided or disengaged.

It's an image they hope sticks in the minds of voters in the final days of a brutal campaign that still has many Democrats, including Obama himself, guarding against the complacency that lost them the White House almost four years ago.

"We were complacent last time. Folks got a little lazy. Folks took things for granted. And look what happened. Not this time. Not in this election," Obama warned in Orlando earlier this week.

THE PLAYLIST

ABC News' "Start Here" podcast. Thursday morning's episode features FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver, who maps out a possible election victory for President Donald Trump despite former Vice President Joe Biden's consistent polling lead. Joan Donovan from the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy tells us why Senate Republicans were grilling tech executives Wednesday. And ABC News foreign correspondent James Longman describes his time with scientists on the hunt for the world's next deadly virus. http://apple.co/2HPocUL

ABC News' "Powerhouse Politics" podcast. Georgia has already seen record turnout during early voting, and on Wednesday, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger predicted that after Election Day, as many as 6 million voters could have cast ballots in this year's general election, up from 4.1 million in 2016. "We very well could hit 4.1 million voters before we hit Tuesday," Raffensperger, a Republican, told ABC News Political Director Rick Klein and Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl. "Back in January, we predicted 5 million voters. Obviously, we should've aimed a little bit higher. ... I think now we'll be probably in the neighborhood of 6 million voters." https://apple.co/31TJ451

FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. As we head toward Election Day, one of the big questions this year is not just who will win, but when we will know who the winner is. States have changed their voting rules in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and more people are voting by mail than ever before. Counting all those mail ballots will be a new task for many states, and that could take time. Unlike in past elections -- when we expected to know the results by the end of election night -- Americans are being cautioned that it could take days or longer to get results this year. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, Galen Druke speaks with the executive director of elections at ABC News, Dan Merkle, who oversees the network's Decision Desk. Merkle explains how ABC News will go about projecting the winner of individual states and the overall presidential race, as well as when we might be able to expect those projections. https://53eig.ht/34C5CsY

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

• President Donald Trump will deliver remarks at campaign rallies in Tampa, Florida, at 1:35 p.m. and in Fayetteville, North Carolina, at 6:30 p.m.
• Former Vice President Joe Biden travel to Florida and deliver remarks at a drive-in event in Broward County at 1:30 p.m. and in Tampa, Florida at 6:30 p.m.
• Jill Biden will participate in canvass launches in Lansing, Michigan, at 1:30 p.m. and in Westland, Michigan, at 3:25 p.m.
• Second lady Karen Pence will participate in a campaign event in Edinboro, Pennsylvania at 1:30 p.m.
• Vice President Mike Pence will speak at campaign rallies in Des Moines, Iowa, at 2:10 p.m. CT and in Reno, Nevada, at 5 p.m. PT.
• Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., participates in a Divine Nine mobilization event at 5 p.m. After, she participates in a virtual Biden for President fundraiser. Later, she joins the Fighting for a Living Wage rally hosted by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
• Doug Emhoff will travel to Ohio Thursday.

Download the ABC News app and select "The Note" as an item of interest to receive the day's sharpest political analysis.

The Note is a daily ABC News feature that highlights the day's top stories in politics. Please check back tomorrow for the latest.