President Joe Biden, who was elected in 2020 as the 46th United States President was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania before moving to New Castle County, Delaware. He went to the University of Delaware, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1965, and he graduated from Syracuse University in 1968. In 1966, he married Neilia Hunter, with whom he shared three children until Neilia and their young daughter were killed in a car accident.

He worked as an attorney before moving into politics and getting elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 at 29 years old, making him the fifth-youngest senator in history. The car accident, which also injured his sons, happened about a month into his first Senate term, and he went on to win reelection six times after coming back in 1973. This made him Delaware’s longest-serving senator.

He married Jill Jacobs in 1977, and they had a daughter. As a Senator, he focused on drug policy, criminal justice and foreign relations.

Biden sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988, but parts of his campaign stump speech were revealed to have been plagiarized from British Labour Party leader Keil Kinnock without attribution. He tried again in 2008, but he didn’t get far. He later became Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate. Biden became the 47th Vice President of the United States in January 2009 after he and Obama defeated the Republican candidates John McCain and Sarah Palin. Biden and Obama were re-elected for a second term in 2012, beating the Republican ticket of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.

While Vice President, Biden targeted budget crises as well as the U.S. policy in Iraq. In 2005, his eldest son Beau died from brain cancer, and Biden wrote Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose, which was published in 2017. He did not enter the presidential race in 2016 as his family was grieving.

Biden announced his candidacy as the Democratic candidate for the presidency in April 2019, and a year later, he defeated Bernie Sanders to lead the ticket. Biden chose Kamala Harris to be his running mate, and they won in a contest against incumbents Donald Trump and Mike Pence in 2020. Their policy focused on government aid to low-income communities, climate change legislation, better health insurance plans and affordable child care.

During his presidency, Biden has overturned some of Donald Trump’s decisions by re-entering the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization as well as backing the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill. He also ushered in bills set to prevent voter suppression laws, do away with gerrymandering and make elections more transparent. On December 13, 2022, Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law, which repealed the Defense of Marriage Act (1996) that allowed states to refuse same-sex marriages.

On July 21, 2024, he announced he would not run for a second term.