On Monday evening, President Joe Biden finally built the bridge.

“I see myself as a bridge, not anything else,” said Biden, then a septuagenarian, on stage with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and then-Senator Kamala Harris in March 2020. “I have a whole generation of leaders behind me. They are the future of this country.”

For three and a half years, there was little sign that Biden would follow through on his plans. Harris, who was chosen as his vice president, appeared to be faltering. While Biden struggled through his 2024 re-election bid, other promising Democrats fell by the wayside. But after he was forced out of the race in July following a shockingly poor debate performance, the party’s old guard handed the keys to the party to a new generation on the first night of the Democratic National Convention.

Of the 25 elected officials scheduled to speak, 13 were under the age of 50. 34-year-old Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made waves with her speech and seemed to take her career to new heights. 37-year-old Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow criticized the conservative plan called “Project 2025” – literally – after releasing it as a large print book. 48-year-old Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear and three young women delivered the party’s most important message, pledging to protect abortion rights.

Other young leaders such as Whitmer, as well as Maryland Governor Wes Moore and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, have apparently been held in reserve, and the speaking schedule for the next three nights has not yet been fully announced.

The youth push is also helping the party sell Harris as a fresh start, a way to move beyond the political chaos of the era marked by former President Donald Trump and the coronavirus pandemic.

Meanwhile, the party turned its attention to leaders of its past. An earlier section paid tribute to the Reverend Jesse Jackson, now suffering from Parkinson’s disease, whose presidential bids in the 1980s helped birth the modern progressive movement. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton placed Harris in a tradition of trailblazing female candidates. And, of course, Biden himself gave Harris direct responsibility for defeating Trump and defending democracy.

“There’s a transition taking place,” said Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.), one of three Democratic leaders in the House who held on to power for eight decades before stepping down after the 2022 election. “You know, it’s kind of interesting. Joe Biden has said from day one that he wants to be that kind of president. Whether he planned the timing or not, he certainly did it.”

In his speech, Biden primarily attacked Trump, unleashing a familiar litany of attacks on the Republican’s character and policies while also touting his own accomplishments in office. Towards the end of his speech, however, he reflected on his decision to withdraw from his re-election bid.

“It has been a lifelong honor to serve you as President. “I love the job. But I love my country more,” Biden said, adding, “All this talk about how angry I am at all the people who said I should resign, that’s not true.”

“We need you to beat Donald Trump and elect Kamala and Tim,” he pleaded with the crowd.

Biden was greeted onstage with a four-minute standing ovation, the longest of the night. Long before he spoke, the crowd occasionally broke into chants of “We love Joe,” with virtually every speaker devoting time to honoring the outgoing 81-year-old’s accomplishments as president.

There were some awkward moments, such as when news cameras lingered on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who played a key role in Biden’s exit from the 2024 campaign — as she chanted “We love Joe.” Republicans also tried to spin the delayed start of Biden’s speech into an example of disrespect. (Convention officials said the hour-long delayed start, at about 10:30 p.m. Central Time, was due to “loud applause” that interrupted earlier speeches.)

Biden was not the only member of the Democratic Party’s old guard to pass the baton to Harris. Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016, said Harris could finally achieve for American women what she fell short of by tens of thousands of votes eight years ago.

“Together, we have made many cracks in the highest and hardest glass ceiling,” Clinton said. “Tonight, we are close to breaking through it once and for all. I want to tell you what I see through all those cracks. And what that means for each and every one of us.”

The proverbial cracks in the glass ceiling were evident in the form of a horde of younger female Democrats that the party sent into the packed arena before and after Clinton’s speeches.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a fellow New Yorker who once volunteered for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Clinton’s left-wing rival in the 2016 primaries, spoke before Clinton.

As she approaches her fourth term in Congress, Ocasio-Cortez took the opportunity to reintroduce herself to a national audience, emphasizing her roots as a bartender and the Democratic Party’s commitment to ordinary people.

“Ever since I was elected, Republicans have attacked me and told me to go back to bartending,” she said. “I would love to do that – any day of the week – because there’s nothing wrong with working for a living. Imagine if there were politicians in the White House who understood that – politicians like Kamala and Tim.”

Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, 43, a former public defender, characterized Harris as a criminal justice reformer who young progressives can hide behind.

“She was the first attorney general in the country to order her officers to wear body cameras, and she started the Back on Track program to reduce recidivism,” Crockett said. “She did all of these things because she really cares about people.”

Crockett also showed her penchant for alliteration – a skill that first became famous when she Hearing in May.

“The question before us is: Will a vengeful, vile villain hurt voters’ vision of a better America or not?” she asked, then added an off-hand comment: “I hear alliteration is back in fashion.”

Finally, 37-year-old Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow used her time on stage to not only criticize but also quote from Project 2025. The policy proposal, which key Trump aides were instrumental in drafting, has become a focal point of the Democratic message despite Republicans’ attempts to distance themselves from it.

“They just wrote down all the extreme things Donald Trump wants to do in the next four years. And then they just tweeted it,” said McMorrow, who is expected to run for statewide office in 2026.

“We believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law. We believe in a system that works for everyone, not in destroying a system to serve a small, selfish man,” she concluded.

Another part of the convention featured rising stars at the state level, including 34-year-old Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis, 49-year-old Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez and 33-year-old Harris County, Texas Judge Lina Hidalgo.

Biden himself ended the evening with memories of his youth. “I was too young to be in the Senate,” said Biden, who was elected before his 30th birthday and sworn in afterward. “And I was too old to remain president.” The sentence seemed to be improvised.

The last lines of his speech were not. “I am more optimistic about the future than I was when I was elected as a 29-year-old U.S. Senator. I mean that! We just need to remember who we are. We are the United States of America, and there is nothing we cannot accomplish if we do it together.”