President-elect Joe Biden's consistent message won through with voters
Credit: Drew Angerer/ Getty Images North America
US 2020 election
In February, Joe Biden’s political career appeared over.
As the race for the Democratic presidential nomination began in earnest he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, then fifth in the New Hampshire primary.
No candidate had ever gone on to victory after faring so badly in the first two state-by-state contests.
Mr Biden appeared rusty. His stump speech seemed uninspiring, and littered with stumbles. And his debate performances were lacklustre. The nadir was an evisceration by Kamala Harris over his record on race issues. Many concluded that his time had passed.
Speaking in New Hampshire, Mr Biden told The Telegraph he was firmly committed to a centrist approach. He said: "We are not going to make the mistake of deciding you can’t talk to the middle of the country, like happened [with the Labour Party] in your country."
However, his party appeared to be moving rapidly toward Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist, who was riding a wave of support from young, left-wing activists.
Pete Buttigieg, a youthful small town mayor from Indiana, had emerged as the new anti-Sanders hope for moderate Democrats.
But then, in late February, the entire political landscape changed in a few frenetic days.
In what the history books will show was one of the most consequential endorsements in US political history, Jim Clyburn, a black US congressman from South Carolina, went all in for Mr Biden.
Mr Clyburn held huge influence with the black community in his state, which made up more than 60 per cent of the Democrat electorate.
Mr Biden romped home in South Carolina, annihilating Mr Sanders, Mr Buttigieg and everyone else. It became clear that, in the southern states, and with the black electorate, he was in pole position.
His victory address in South Carolina proved to be arguably the speech of Mr Biden’s life.
Joe Biden's victory speech in South Carolina
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After thanking "my buddy Jim Clyburn," he said: "For all those who have been knocked down, counted out, left behind, this is your campaign!"
Mr Biden opened up about the "overwhelming pain" he had felt when his son Beau died of cancer in 2015.
And he told how it had helped him to visit the South Carolina church where a white supremacist killed nine black people during a Bible study class.
Then, he issued a clarion call to reclaim the party from Mr Sanders and the left wing.
"If the Democrats want a nominee who is a Democrat, a lifelong Democrat, a proud Democrat, an Obama-Biden Democrat, then join us," he said. "Most Americans don’t want the promise of revolution. They want more than promises. They want results."
Just three days after South Carolina came "Super Tuesday", the biggest single day of voting in the nomination race, with more than a dozen states going to the polls.
Determined to stop Mr Sanders, other moderate candidates quickly answered Mr Biden’s call. Mr Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar, along with Beto O’Rourke, dropped out and endorsed him.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren, the left-wing senator, stayed in the race, continuing to take votes away from Mr Sanders.
Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire media mogul, was also still in and competed in all the Super Tuesday states. However, Mr Bloomberg proved a paper tiger, winning only American Samoa.
Mr Biden trounced Mr Sanders, winning 10 states to his opponent’s four.
Mr Sanders had one last shot in a one-on-one debate in March, but Mr Biden emerged unscathed, and the nomination was effectively his.
Around this time Mr Biden began setting out his stall on the pandemic, a safety first position that would remain consistent through the rollercoaster months ahead.
He conducted virtual events from his home in Delaware, rarely appearing in person. The president mocked him for "hiding in his basement" – but Mr Biden didn’t waver.
Mr Biden conducting an interview from his home in Delaware
Credit: Reuters
In addition, he set out to make the election a referendum not just on the president’s handling of the pandemic, but on Donald Trump himself.
He stuck to a clear and simple core message – "unity" and "restoring the soul of the nation".
Repeatedly, Mr Biden told virtual events that it was Mr Trump’s comments following neo-Nazi clashes in Charlottesville – that there were "very fine people on both sides" – that led him to run.
Given Mr Biden’s age, the choice of a running mate was always going to be important and he devoted a lot of time to it.
He decided early that it would be a woman, and the vetting process was intense, with many candidates looked at.
Ultimately, he made the historic choice of Kamala Harris, the first black woman on a major party’s presidential ticket. Mr Biden wanted someone he would get on with personally, and Ms Harris had been friendly with his son Beau. He decided to move on from her debate attack on him.
Kamala Harris joined the campaign, after savaging Biden at an earlier debate
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His decision was announced in August, shortly before the Democratic National Convention. The convention was held virtually, and Mr Biden accepted the nomination from Delaware.
Again, he rose to the moment, overcoming the difficulty of speaking to a TV camera in an empty room, to deliver a speech that was widely praised.
In it he framed the election as a battle between "light" and "dark," using those words 19 times.
"The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long," he said. "Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division. I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. I will be an ally of the light, not of the darkness.
"May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight as love and hope and light joined in the battle for the soul of the nation."
Amid speculation over Mr Biden’s occasional mangling of words, the convention also showcased, and brought to America’s attention, how the nominee had overcome a a childhood stutter.
In the most poignant moment of the convention, Brayden Harrington, a 13-year-old boy with a stutter, told how Mr Biden had personally helped him.
Brayden Harrington addressing the Democratic National Convention
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"He told me about a book of poems by Yeats that he would read out loud to practice," Brayden said.
"I’m just trying to be a kid. And in a short amount of time Joe Biden made me feel more confident about something that’s bothered me my whole life. Joe Biden cared."
On Sept 29 Mr Biden showed up in person in Cleveland for the first presidential debate, and it turned out to be extraordinary.
Mr Trump interrupted him repeatedly, a tactic which appeared to backfire as many polls showed Mr Biden’s calmer approach, and attempts to focus on the pandemic response, making him the winner.
Soon after, the president was diagnosed with coronavirus, having hosted what turned out to be a "superspreader" event at the White House.
In the second and final debate Mr Biden again stuck to his core message of unity and pandemic safety precautions.
His tactic of looking into the camera and speaking directly, and empathetically, to the American people appeared to have been highly effective.
As Mr Trump set off on a manic round of last minute rallies, packing in thousands of people without masks, Mr Biden made the contrast between them ever more stark.
He held tiny socially-distanced events, telling everyone to cover their faces, and only removing his own to make speeches.
A socially distanced Biden campaign event in Michigan
Credit: Reuters
Some senior Democrats – including, it was rumoured, Barack Obama – had feared, or even assumed, that during the long campaign Mr Biden would stumble and make catastrophic mistakes.
And there were own goals.
His comment at the end of the final debate that he would "transition away from the oil industry" undoubtedly cost him votes in states including Pennsylvania and Ohio.
But over the course of the year he proved remarkably disciplined, making fewer gaffes than Hillary Clinton.
Unlike Mrs Clinton he did not call Trump supporters “deplorables” or publicly vow to put coal miners "out of business".
There were other occasional missteps. At one point, in an interview, he started saying there could not be "four more years of George…" before his wife Jill beside him whispered "Trump". Mr Trump seized on it, but Democrats pointed out that the interviewer, out of shot, was called George.
Barack Obama campaigned to boost Democrat turnout
Credit: AP
Nor did Republican opposition researchers find a Biden scandal to match the saga of Mrs Clinton’s emails.
The business dealings of Hunter Biden became a focus for Mr Trump but the complex and unsubstantiated allegations never resonated with independent voters, nor indeed many Republicans.
In the final days of the campaign Mr Biden deployed his best weapon to boost turnout, former president Barack Obama, who made speeches in key states attacking and mocking Mr Trump.
Mr Biden himself remained cautious in style, consistent in his message on the pandemic, and moderate in his policy proposals.
It was an approach he maintained through the turbulent hours and days that followed Election Day, publicly calling for calm and patience, and for all ballots to be counted.
While Mr Trump was braggadocious and bombastic, Mr Biden was slow and steady. And slow and steady won the race.
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