Typically, a non-incumbent winner of a presidential election is referred to as president-elect as soon as the Associated Press calls the election. However, the candidate doesn’t technically become president-elect until: 1) the electors vote and 2) Congress counts those votes. Therefore, wouldn’t it be more accurate to refer to that candidate as projected president-elect until Congress counts the electors’ votes? What do you think?
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You are correct, especially when the main rival has not conceded, as was the case in 2020. If the principal opponent has conceded, then the rest is a formality, and calling the winner anything other than president-elect might needlessly bring about a sense of uncertainty or instability.
Whether contesting presidential election results is a practice here to stay or an aberration may determine if this is a question of semantics or if we really need to rethink the terminology.
Also, what about presumptive vs. projected? Which sounds more, or less, “certain”?
Remember the 2000 election with the hanging chads? During that entire process, which lasted several weeks, neither Bush nor Gore was referred to as president-elect.
Long ago, party nominations were decided at conventions. Over the past few decades, they were decided long before, and this time around is the earliest I can remember. Running mates were also chosen at conventions. That everything is wrapped up so early nowadays could be a sign of an irrational fear of chaos if the opposite were true.
To that end, this irrational fear may extend to ensuring a “president-elect” is named as soon the absolutely unofficial act of AP calling the election happens.
We survived uncertainty in 2000, we can survive it again.
Shelley, I’d go with projected over presumptive, because presumptive begs the question: presumed by whom? While one can also make the same argument for projected (by whom?), the latter seems to me to be a clearer communication of “someone has projected this, but it’s still unofficial.”
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