Joe Biden, Kamala Harris Named Time 'Person of the Year'

Biden and Harris are the presumed president- and vice president-elects, according to major US media projections, while the election results are being disputed by incumbent President Donald Trump.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been named TIME's Person of the Year for 2020, the newspaper confirmed late Thursday.

In the Thursday article, it is mentioned that Biden and Kamala "offered restoration and renewal in a single ticket", "racking up" 81 million votes in this election, which is 7 million more than sitting President Donald Trump received.

"Together, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris offered restoration and renewal in a single ticket. And America bought what they were selling: after the highest turnout in a century, they racked up 81 million votes and counting, the most in presidential history, topping Trump by some 7 million votes and flipping five battleground states”, it said.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are TIME's 2020 Person of the Year #TIMEPOY https://t.co/o97QNlSBrl pic.twitter.com/KuoBoebBN4

— TIME (@TIME) December 11, 2020

The Biden-Harris duo was chosen ahead of several other finalists: frontline healthcare workers and Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci, the racial justice movement, and Donald Trump, who won the title back in 2016 after he became president.

While Biden, the projected winner of the US presidential election, has already named a whole pool of officials to fill the key positions in his presumed administration, the official outcome of the presidential race has yet to be certified by the Electoral College, which is set to meet on 14 December.

U.S. President Donald Trump attends a campaign rally for Republican U.S. senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, ahead of their January runoff elections to determine control of the U.S. Senate, in Valdosta, Georgia, U.S., December 5, 2020.

© REUTERS / JONATHAN ERNST

Despite allowing a transition of power to the Biden team last month, Trump refused to formally concede, as his team filed multiple lawsuits over alleged violations in battleground states, saying the outcome of the vote may have been altered.

Texas authorities later filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court, seeking to disqualify the election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, claiming that the said states violated their own statutes by delaying deadlines of the vote count and sending mail-in-ballots to all registered voters. Some 17 more states subsequently backed the Texas motion.