Trending: ‘president-elect’

Lookups spiked 6,900% on November 7, 2020

Why are people looking up president-elect?

The declaration by the Associated Press that Vice President Joe Biden was projected to receive more than the 270 votes necessary to win the electoral college and become the next President of the United States triggered lookups of president-elect on Saturday, November 7, 2020.

The AP's assessment has been used as the announcement of a winner of the presidential race for decades.

What does president-elect mean?

President-elect is defined as "a person who has been elected president but who has not officially become president yet."

Where does president-elect come from?

This term has been used since the early 1700s, before the United States became a country, a time when president was used to mean simply "the presiding officer of a company or meeting" and was considered a bureaucratic and even unglamorous title, which is partly why it was selected by the Founders, who wished to avoid the trappings of royalty in the new nation.

Trend Watch is a data-driven report on words people are looking up at much higher search rates than normal. While most trends can be traced back to the news or popular culture, our focus is on the lookup data rather than the events themselves.