Joe Biden and Kamala Harris named Time's 2020 Person of the Year

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are Time's 2020 Person of the Year, the magazine announced Thursday night.

Time says the Person of the Year is someone who "affected the news or our lives the most, for better or worse." 2020 was tumultuous and brutal, "a year without measure," Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal said, and 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."

They were chosen for the honor because they changed "the American story," Felsenthal said, demonstrating that "the forces of empathy are greater than the furies of division" and sharing "a vision of healing in a grieving world."

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The other finalists were President Trump, "the movement for racial justice," and a combination of frontline health workers and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's top infectious disease expert. Trump was Time's 2016 Person of the Year.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.