Joe Biden had characterized his campaign for the White House as a “battle for the soul of the nation” against Donald Trump, a president he said threatened the very foundation of American democracy.
Now, four years after Americans elected a real estate developer-turned reality TV star with no political experience, they have elected a former US senator and vice-president with nearly 50 years of political experience.
Democrats agonized and strategized over how to beat a candidate as unconventional and unpredictable as Trump. The answer, Biden showed, was a completely conventional and predictable campaign.
Despite a year of historic upheaval – a pandemic that has killed more than 227,000 Americans, economic turmoil, social unrest, the death of a supreme court justice, a briefly hospitalized president – the race remained remarkably stable towards the end, and polling correctly predicted a Biden victory, though by a narrower margin than anticipated.
He was not a rising star, a barrier breaker or an anti-establishment outsider. Nor was he pledging to shake up Washington or lead a political revolution. But Biden knew why he was running.
“Look, I am running because Trump is the president and I think our democracy is at stake, for real,” Biden told reporters in July. “And what seems to be the case is many Americans – those who don’t like me and those who do – view me as the antithesis of Trump and I believe that I am.”
Despite running in a primary field of Democratic presidential rivals with bigger plans, bolder visions and enviable followings, Biden’s focus was always Trump.
After becoming the nominee, he selected the California senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, a historic choice that nodded to the future of his party, which is increasingly dominated by women and people of color. Harris, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, made history as the first woman and the first woman of color to be elected vice-president.
For much of the election cycle, Biden maintained a relatively low profile, a slow and steady approach meant to demonstrate that he was a serious, sober leader who listened to the “docs” and followed the science. He operated a mostly digital campaign before eventually returning to the physical trail.
Careful not to repeat the mistakes of 2016, Biden lavished attention on the trio of rust belt states that swung for Trump in 2016: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. But he also seized opportunities to expand the electoral landscape, winning a remarkable upset in the Republican bastion of Arizona.
But even as Democratic enthusiasm propelled a wave of early voting and his opponent barnstormed the swing states with big rallies that flouted public health guidelines, Biden stayed the course. He continued to hold small events with few guests and a contingent of reporters.
Trump relentlessly mocked this strategy, accusing Biden of dwelling in his basement after waving “a white flag on life”. Asked about the remark, Biden called his opponent “pathetic”.
Many Democrats feared that a lack of enthusiasm would imperil Biden’s candidacy. According to an October Pew poll, 63% of Biden supporters said their choice was more a vote against Trump than for Biden. In contrast, 71% of Trump supporters said they were voting for the president.
But his supporters were already motivated. Pent-up anger that built over the course of Trump’s presidency – from the Women’s March to the #MeToo movement and the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests – crested on election night. A coalition of young people, voters of color and white suburban women aligned to seal Trump’s fate.
Biden courted Republicans and moderates, and won the support of the Ohio governor and former presidential candidate John Kasich, former Arizona senator Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain, the widow of the Arizona senator John McCain. He assailed Trump for governing only for his base of loyalists and promised to be “an American president”.
Biden offered America a timeout, a cooling-off period to reset after four dizzying years of bare-knuckled Trumpism.
That was Barack Obama’s pitch when he returned to the campaign trail last month on behalf of his former vice-president. Obama imagined a future when voters didn’t have to think about the president’s latest tweet or insult. In fact, they wouldn’t have to think about the president at all.
“With Joe and Kamala at the helm, you’re not going to have to think about the crazy things they said every day,” Obama said. “And that’s worth a lot.”
