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Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller
Kerri Miller and Marcheta Fornoff

What is the Democratic Party’s mandate?

President-elect Joe Biden speaks
President-elect Joe Biden speaks during an event at the Queen Theater on Saturday, Jan. 16, 2021, in Wilmington, Del.
Matt Slocum | AP

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After a tumultuous few weeks, President-elect Joe Biden will officially take the oath of office on Wednesday.

Congress confirmed his Electoral College victory just hours after pro-Trump rioters broke into the Capitol building, temporarily delaying proceedings. 

His administration’s ability to pass legislation opened up drastically, when Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won Senate seats in Georgia’s runoff elections. 

Their victories gave the Democratic caucus 50 seats in the Senate, which splits the chamber evenly with the Republican caucus. The tie-breaker vote will go to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, garnering Democrats slight control so long as they can keep their party united.

Democrats also held onto their majority in the House of Representatives, despite losing seats.

The lackluster results for Democrats down the ticket spurred debates over what issues the party needs to focus on and whose votes they should be courting.

Two political scientists joined MPR News host Kerri Miller for a conversation about the Democratic mandate for the Biden administration’s first 100 days.   


Guests:
Seth Masket is director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver. He is also the author of “Learning from Loss: The Democrats, 2016-2020.”

Andrea Benjamin is an associate professor of African and African American studies at The University of Oklahoma and author of “Racial Coalition Building in Local Elections: Elite Cues and Cross-Ethnic Voting.” 

Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or RSS