Biden Is Projected To Be The President-Elect. Here’s How It All Went Down.

As Perry mentioned, you might have noticed Biden claiming a “mandate for action.” That’s no coincidence. As Julia Azari noted for us, presidents (or soon-to-be presidents) have much more incentive to explicitly claim a mandate when the outcome of an election is contentious or contested.

Expect to hear a lot more from Biden about mandates in the weeks and months to come.

“Democracy works,” says Biden. “Your vote will be counted.” A reminder that are still a number of outstanding lawsuits from the Trump campaign that question whether all votes should be counted.

Biden noting that he will likely be the first Democrat in more than 20 years to win in Arizona and Georgia. In listing his wins in various states, Biden is suggesting that this will be a broad victory — he even used the word “mandate.” He twice mentioned winning more than 70 million votes. Biden also emphasized that he is already in meetings about how to deal with COVID-19 as president. “We may be opponents, but we’re not enemies,” Biden says of people who didn’t vote for him. “It’s time for us to come together as a nation and heal.” The speech included a long riff on bringing the country together. Nothing really new from Biden, but he is now saying it as the likely president-elect.