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

A big takeaway from this speech for me was the emphasis on Harris as a part of the ticket and the new administration. This reflects the growing power of the vice presidency, a trend that’s been building since the 1970s, and also Biden’s awareness, I think, that he doesn’t totally reflect the demographics of his party in ways that have become more important in recent years.

The 2008 and 2016 acceptance speeches felt like the potential beginnings of new eras in American politics. But this feels much more like the end of a tumultuous era than a beginning. Even 1992, the last defeat of an incumbent president, felt like a potential era of change because of a new generation of leadership. But this is much more of a return to the old style, and it’s even being sold that way.

Biden mentioned Native Americans as he listed off the groups he received support from, and as things may play out in Arizona, that group could be the difference between him winning and losing the state’s electoral votes. Currently, Biden leads there by about 19,000 votes, but in the three counties that overlap the lands of the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe in northeastern Arizona, Biden edged out Trump by a little more than 22,000 votes. We’ll see where Arizona ends up as it has another 100,000 or so votes to count, but it’s possible that support among American Indian communities in Arizona might make the difference there.