BIDEN, TRUMP look for safe nomination sites.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, are searching for places to impressively yet safely accept their parties’ presidential nominations as the spread of the coronavirus adds fresh uncertainty to the campaign for the White House.

Trump said Wednesday that he’s considering giving his Aug. 27 acceptance speech on the grounds of the White House. Biden, meanwhile, scrapped plans to accept the Democratic nomination on Aug. 20 in Milwaukee, where the party has spent more than a year planning a convention.

Presidential conventions are a staple of American politics and have played out against national traumas as significant as the Civil War and World War II. But the pandemic’s potency is proving to be a tougher obstacle, denying both candidates crucial opportunities to connect with supporters in the final stretch before the Nov. 3 election.

The campaigns are looking for alternative ways to deal with the virus and still reach millions of Americans through television and virtual events. Longtime convention attendees say they’ll miss the traditional festivities even as they acknowledge public health priorities.

In a phone interview with Fox & Friends on Wednesday, Trump said the first night of GOP programming would originate from Charlotte, N.C., but the rest would be shown from various locations, including potentially the White House.

Holding such an event at the White House would mark the latest test to norms and laws prohibiting the use of government property and personnel in campaign activities.

Trump is exempted from the Hatch Act, which limits the political activities of federal employees. It also does not cover “rooms in the White House or in the residence of the vice president, which are part of the residence area or which are not regularly used solely in the discharge of official duties.”

“If for some reason somebody had difficulty with it, I could go someplace else,” Trump said. “The easiest, least expensive, and I think very beautiful would be live from the White House.”

Biden hasn’t been so publicly reluctant to scale back his convention, expressing doubts about a full arena even before Democratic National Committee officials made the move toward a virtual event.

In late April, when Democrats first started acknowledging the likelihood of a drastically altered convention, Biden’s team put together a 45-minute show marking the one-year anniversary of his campaign launch. It featured top supporters, video from a year of campaigning, some biographical tidbits about the candidate and then Biden addressing supporters alongside his wife, Jill Biden.

Those kinds of effects and approaches could be repeated even without a traditional convention stage in an arena or stadium.

Nominees have used the affairs to shape their messages and identities for the general electorate. George H.W. Bush went to New Orleans in 1988 to establish a brand separate from his two terms as Ronald Reagan’s vice president. Four years later, Gov. Bill Clinton’s campaign unveiled his famous biographical video as he dubbed himself a “boy from Hope,” his Arkansas hometown.

Meanwhile, Biden’s campaign announced in a Wednesday memo it’s reserving $220 million in television airtime and $60 million in digital ads, in contrast to the $147 million the Trump campaign has reserved, according to a review of Kantar/CMAG data by The Associated Press. Both campaigns can add to or subtract from their reservations at any time.