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.
