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

Biden’s message is certainly one of unity and working together to solve the nation’s problems. In this polarized environment, that kind of cooperation might seem difficult to imagine, but Biden has drawn a contrast with the president’s rhetoric throughout the campaign and since the vote-counting began on Nov. 3. Of course, he may be pretty limited in terms of what he can accomplish if Democrats can’t somehow manage to win both Georgia Senate runoffs to take control of the Senate. A GOP-controlled Senate isn’t going to be very interested in cooperating with Biden, although maybe they can work something out on COVID-19, given the continued challenge.

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.