It’s lucky that votes usually don’t get counted till late at night. Victorious presidential candidates have two audiences to speak to. Their zealous volunteers generally get little reward other than the sense, inculcated over months of battle, that they are fighting to vanquish the forces of evil. On election night, they expect someone to extol their bravery and ruthlessness, and to hold aloft the head of the vanquished foe. It’s preferable if this can be done while the rest of the country is either sleeping or weepily watching its own candidate concede. When, days later, the president-elect pivots to flatter the whole country and extend an olive branch to his rivals, his loyal followers can feel jilted.
Because of late arriving mail-in votes, huge turnout, and the sheer closeness of November’s election in swing states, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had to rile up supporters and reassure neutrals at the same prime-time event. It was four days after the election, at one of those outdoor parking lot rallies that became a staple of Biden’s Covid-era campaign. Harris was triumphal: “Our very democracy was on the ballot in this election, with the very soul of America at stake,” she said. “You chose hope and unity, decency, science, and yes, truth.” Biden was conciliatory, quoting the Bible and promising to “work as hard for those who didn’t vote for me as those who did.” Perhaps that will be a viable division of labor for the indefinite future.
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