President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have been named TIME’s Person of the Year for 2020.
Biden, the Democrat who defeated incumbent President Donald Trump in the 2020 election to become just the 11th candidate in U.S. history to defeat a president seeking reelection, was part of a historic ticket with Harris, who will become the nation’s first female vice president and the first Black and South Asian vice president.
“If Donald Trump was a force for disruption and division over the past four years, Biden and Harris show where the nation is heading: a blend of ethnicities, lived experiences and world views that must find a way forward together if the American experiment is to survive,” TIME Editor-In-Chief Edward Felsenthal wrote in an essay about the selection.
Harris is the country’s first female, first Black and first South Asian vice president-elect. Biden, who at 78 will be the oldest person ever to assume the presidency, is also the oldest ever to be named Person of the Year by the magazine. He follows Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist who last year became the youngest ever to receive the honor — at age 16.
Biden and Harris made the cut after topping a shortlist that included the movement for racial justice, Dr. Anthony Fauci and front-line workers in the fight against COVID-19.
Last year, Time named Greta Thunberg its person of the year, choosing her over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Trump, the Ukraine whistleblower and the Hong Kong protesters.
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