Reasons Biden won

Anthony Zurcher, BBC:

In his third try for the Oval Office, Biden still had his share of verbal stumbles, but they were sufficiently infrequent that they never became more than a short-term issue.

Part of the explanation for this, of course, is that the president himself was an unrelenting source of news cycle churn. Another factor was that there were bigger stories – the coronavirus pandemic, protests after the death of George Floyd and economic disruption – dominating national attention.

But at least some credit should be given to a concerted strategy by the Biden campaign to limit their candidate’s exposure, keeping a measured pace in the campaign, and minimising the chances that fatigue or carelessness could create problems.

Perhaps in a normal election, when most Americans weren’t worried about limiting their own exposure to a virus, this strategy would have backfired. Maybe then Trump’s derisive „hidin‘ Biden“ jabs would have taken their toll.

The campaign sought to stay out of the way and let Trump be the one whose mouth betrayed him – and, in the end, it paid off.

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Biden bet his political fortunes on the contention that Trump was too polarising and too inflammatory, and what the American people wanted was calmer, steadier leadership.

„I’m just exhausted by Trump’s attitude as a person,“ says Thierry Adams, a native of France who after 18 years living in Florida cast his first vote in a presidential election in Miami last week.

Democrats succeeded in making this election a referendum on Trump, not a binary choice between the two candidates.

Biden’s winning message was simply that he was „not Trump“. A common refrain from Democrats was that a Biden victory meant Americas could go for weeks without thinking about politics. It was meant as a joke, but it contained a kernel of truth.

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Biden stuck with a centrist strategy, refusing to back universal government-run healthcare, free college education, or a wealth tax. This allowed him maximise his appeal to moderates and disaffected Republicans during the general election campaign.

This strategy was reflected in Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris as his running mate when he could have opted for someone with stronger support from the party’s left wing.

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Money isn’t everything, of course. Four years ago, the Clinton campaign had a sizeable monetary lead over Trump’s shoestring operation.

But in 2020, when in-person campaigning was curtailed by coronavirus and Americans across the country spent considerably more time consuming media in their homes, Biden’s cash advantage let him reach voters and push his message out until the very end. It allowed him to expand the electoral map, putting money into what once seemed to be longshot states like Texas, Georgia, Ohio and Iowa. Most of those bets didn’t pay off, but he put Trump on the defence, flipping what was once reliably conservative Arizona and staying highly competitive in Georgia.

Money gives a campaign options and initiative – and Biden put his advantage to good use.