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After months of shadowboxing amid a tense and toxic campaign, Capitol Hill’s main players are returning for one final, perhaps futile, attempt at deal-making on a challenging menu of year-end business.

COVID-19 relief, a $1.4 trillion catchall spending package, and defense policy – and a final burst of judicial nominees – dominate a truncated two- or three-week session occurring as the coronavirus pandemic rockets out of control in President Donald Trump’s final weeks in office.

The only absolute must-do business is preventing a government shutdown when a temporary spending bill expires on Dec. 11. The route preferred by top lawmakers like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, is to agree upon and pass an omnibus spending bill for the government. But it may be difficult to overcome bitter divisions regarding a long-delayed COVID-19 relief package that’s a top priority of business, state and local governments, educators and others.

McConnell is focusing on confirming Trump’s remaining judicial nominations, including a vote Monday on a district judge in Mississippi and at least one additional appeals court vacancy.

Time is working against lawmakers as well, as is the Capitol’s emerging status as a COVID-19 hotspot. The House has truncated its schedule, and Senate Republicans are joining Democrats in forgoing the in-person lunch meetings that usually anchor their workweeks. It’ll take serious, good-faith conversations among top players to determine what’s possible, but those haven’t transpired yet.

Democrats have battled with Republicans and the White House for months over a fresh installment of COVID-19 relief that all sides say they want. But a lack of good faith and an unwillingness to embark on compromises that might lead either side out of their political comfort zones have helped keep another rescue package on ice.

The aid remains out of reach despite a fragile economy and out-of-control increases in coronavirus cases, especially in Midwest GOP strongholds. McConnell has supplanted Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin as the most important Republican force in the negotiations, but he hasn’t shown much openness for politically difficult compromises required for a COVID-19 deal that might anger conservatives. Neither have McConnell’s warnings of a wave of COVID-related lawsuits against businesses, schools and nonprofits open during the pandemic come to pass, undercutting his demand for blanket protections against such suits.

Pelosi seems to have overplayed her hand as she held out for $2 trillion-plus right up until the election. The results of the election, which saw Democrats lose seats in the House, appear to have significantly undercut her position, but she is holding firm on another round of aid to state and local governments.

Before the election, Trump seemed to be focused on a provision that would send another round of $1,200 payments to most Americans. He hasn’t shown a lot of interest in the topic since, apart from stray tweets. But the chief obstacles now appear to be Pelosi’s demand for state and local government aid and McConnell’s demand for a liability shield for businesses reopening during the pandemic.

At stake is funding for vaccines and testing, reopening schools, aid to public transit systems, money to backstop state budgets and various economic “stimulus” ideas like another round of PPP subsidies for businesses especially hard hit by the pandemic. Failure to pass a measure now would vault the topic to the top of Biden’s legislative agenda next year.