Facts about Joseph Biden
Joseph Biden Biography
Joseph Biden is the 46th president of the United States. He also served as vice president of the United States from 2009-2017, under President Barack Obama, and as a U.S. senator from Delaware from 1973 until 2009.
Joe Biden was born in Pennsylvania and moved with his family to Delaware at age 10. He earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware in 1965, then a law degree from Syracuse University in 1968. A political prodigy, he was only 29 when elected to the Senate in 1972. He was elected six times more: in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008.
As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee beginning in 1975, Biden carved out a reputation as a brainy and talkative expert in international relations. He ran for president in the elections of 1988 and 2008, losing in the primaries both times. Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination in 2008 and then chose Biden as his running mate. They defeated Republican nominees John McCain and Sarah Palin in the general election.
Joe Biden also was re-elected to the U.S. Senate in 2008 (Delaware law allowed him to run for both offices), but he gave up that seat to become vice president. Biden and Obama took office on January 20, 2009. They were re-elected for new four-year terms on November 6, 2012, defeating the Republican ticket of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. After Biden and Obama stepped down at the end of two terms, they were succeeded by Republican president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence.
Four years after leaving office, Joe Biden was chosen as the Democratic nominee for U.S. president in the elections of 2020. He chose Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, and together they defated incumbents Trump and Pence in the general elections of 2020. Joe Biden took office as U.S. president on January 20, 2021.
Biden ran for reelection in 2024, winning the Democratic primary in all 50 states. However, at age 81 he had slowed physically, and after a disastrous debate appearance against Republican candidate Donald Trump in June of 2024, Biden faced calls to step down from pundits, journalists, and some fellow Democratic politicians. On July 21, he announced that he would not run for reelection, and threw his support behind his vice president since 2021, Kamala Harris.
Extra credit
Joe Biden married the former Neilia Hunter in 1966. They had three children: Joseph R. Biden III (called “Beau,” b. 1969), Hunter (b. 1970), and Naomi (b. 1971). Neilia and Naomi were killed in a car crash in 1972, just a month after Biden was elected to the Senate. Hunter and Beau were injured in the crash but survived. Joe Biden remarried in 1977, to schoolteacher Jill Jacobs (now Jill Biden). Their daughter Ashley was born in 1981… Beau Biden was elected attorney general of Delaware in 2006 and served two terms, through 2014. He died of brain cancer on May 30, 2015… Joe Biden’s 1988 run for president was cut short in 1987 after he used portions of a speech from British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock in a campaign speech, without attributing Kinnock. Biden said it was an honest mistake, while critics called it plagiarism… Joe Biden published a memoir, Promises to Keep, in 2007.