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."
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.