Joe Biden, a senior politician, spent the majority of his career as a senator from Delaware. Biden won his first Senate contest in 1972, making him “the fifth-youngest senator in U.S. history,” according to History.
Biden won again and again throughout the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s. For 36 years in the Senate, Biden was a part of landmark decisions, such as dealing with the fallout from a scandal that stunned the White House – President Bill Clinton’s impeachment.
According to CNN, the Senate acquitted President Clinton in 1999 after Biden voted “not guilty” on both impeachment articles. According to the Los Angeles Times, Biden also voted in support of the Iraq War in 2002, a decision that future President Barack Obama rejected.
Biden appeared to have a very regular personal life outside of politics. According to the UVA Miller Center, following his son Beau’s tragic death in 2015, he temporarily lost his “appetite” for politics and instead “created the Biden Foundation and the Biden Cancer Initiative” with his wife until his presidential bid.
But Biden’s life hasn’t been smooth on the way to becoming president in 2020, with scandals and tragedies dotting his career.
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942, during World War II. Biden grew raised as the oldest of four children in Scranton, Pennsylvania. When Biden was 10 years old, “he moved with his family to the Wilmington, Delaware, area, where his father found work as a car salesman,” according to History.
Biden’s father, according to US News, was a working-class man who “cleaned furnaces and sold used cars.” Biden attended Catholic schools in Delaware before entering Archmere Academy, an “elite preparatory high school.” However, while in school, Biden battled with his grades but even more so with his stutter. The young man was purportedly referred to by classmates as “Dash” and “Joe Impedimenta.”
In a promotional film titled “11 Things You May Not Know About Joe Biden,” the president acknowledged that his stuttering setback helped him progress. He “would recite Yeats and Emerson to work on his public speaking,” according to reports, referring to two prominent poets.
Biden also said in a CNN town hall speech that his mother’s support helped lead him. “Joey, don’t let this define you,” she urged him. Remember who you are, Joey. Joey, you’ve got this.” The future president spoke about how he remained an advocate for individuals who stammer and confessed that he still stutters on occasion. “When you think about it, stuttering is the only handicap people still laugh about. That still humiliates people,” Biden stated.
Joe Biden attended the University of Delaware for his undergraduate studies. Fred Sears, one of his high school pals, described Biden at the time as “a good-looking guy with a gift of gab.” Biden was supposedly “an aspiring football running back” during his freshman year, and “Biden was elected president of his class.” Biden was recalled as a nice young man by a fellow football player. Biden allegedly did not drink or smoke, and he frequently drove about in a convertible.
Biden worked as a lifeguard in Wilmington, Delaware, while attending college. According to reports, “Biden was the only white lifeguard at a public pool in a predominantly African-American neighborhood.” And, as Maurice Pritchett, a Wilmington education leader at the time, told The New York Times, Biden “was always right there.” And we welcomed him.” Biden reportedly “once walked out of a Wilmington restaurant that refused to serve a Black student from his high school.”
According to the University of Delaware, Biden graduated with a double major in political science and history at the end of his undergraduate career.
According to The New York Times, Joe Biden was known at the University of Delaware as “the teetotaling semi-jock with a sweater around his neck — the type who seemed more consumed with date nights than civil rights.”
And, once, while on a date, Biden allegedly threatened “to break off an evening with a woman who lit a cigarette in his borrowed convertible.” But Biden discovered his true love away from the university. He and his friends went to Florida for spring vacation in 1964.
The lads then decided to go to Nassau, Bahamas. While on the island, Biden sneaked into a hotel pool “by wrapping a guest towel around his waist and walking past the guards confidently.” Biden first noticed Neilia Hunter, a young woman from Syracuse, there. A few years later, they married.
During his time as Vice President, Biden released a snapshot of himself from those early days. He captioned the photo on the official @vp Instagram, “Short sleeve button-downs are making a comeback, but health care has never gone out of style.”This photo of a young Biden in a short-sleeved red shirt with palm plants in the background caused quite a sensation on the internet.
Joe Biden wanted to be closer to Neilia Hunter after meeting her on vacation. According to The New York Times, because Hunter and her family were from upstate New York, Biden applied to Syracuse University Law School. Biden and Hunter married when Biden was still in graduate school in 1966.
According to Syracuse, the newlyweds shared a first-floor apartment in Syracuse from 1966 to 1968. Biden was a student, and Hunter was a teacher at a local primary school. The two, together with their German shepherd, were well-liked in the neighborhood.
According to neighbors and friends, the Bidens hosted Sunday meals, Biden adored vehicles (unsurprising given his father’s business), and he owned a green 1967 Stingray Corvette (a wedding gift from his father). Biden still possessed that automobile in 2020, although he apparently drove around Syracuse in it with buddies back then.
Biden was also a community protector. According to the report, “When a neighbor kid was attacked for stuttering, it was Biden who appeared from nowhere to shout down the bullies.” Kevin Coyne, a little lad, recalls the future president going after the kids who were mocking him. “He lit into them,” Coyne explained, adding that he didn’t realize Biden himself stammered.
Joe Biden returned to Delaware after graduating in New York and worked “as an attorney for the next four years,” according to History. Biden then chose to run in his first political race in 1970. He was elected to the New Castle County Council and served for two years. Before reaching 30, Biden faced “Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs in a race for the U.S. Senate.”
Biden won in an unexpected triumph, but calamity struck Biden’s personal life soon after. According to US News, his wife, two kids, and daughter were on their way to pick up a Christmas tree for the family. During their journey, a “tractor-trailer plowed into their station wagon,” killing Biden’s “wife and 13-month-old daughter.” Both of Biden’s boys survived but were badly injured. “Biden was sworn into the U.S. Senate at his sons’ hospital bedsides,” according to his White House profile.
In an interview, Francis Valeo, the Secretary of the Senate at the time, revealed how Biden was sworn in. “He refused to come down to be sworn in during the regular session.” “He said he couldn’t leave the kids,” Valeo observed. He was then given permission to travel to Wilmington for the ceremony. Valeo recalled Biden saying a few things and claiming that “he wasn’t at all sure he was going to run again, that he might be just a one-term senator.”
Joe Biden unexpectedly discovered love while still grieving the devastating deaths of his wife and children. “My brother said, ‘There’s this woman — you’ll like her, Joe,’ he said in a video for the Democratic National Convention.” So I called her, and she had a date that night.” But her first reaction was much funnier. “‘How did you come up with this number?’ “Those were the first words I said to Joe when he called me on a Saturday in 1975,” Jill Biden wrote on Instagram. Joe requested Jill to skip the date and go out with him instead, as she described in the DNC tape. “I called and told the guy that I had a friend visiting from out of town and went out with Joe,” she explained.
“I wasn’t into the whole dating thing.” But when I met Jill, I instantly fell in love with her,” Joe explained. Joe revealed that his two sons were likewise smitten with Jill when they began dating. He remembered his sons telling him, “We think it’s time we married Jill.” Joe felt the same way and proposed to Jill. But it took a few tries for Joe to get the desired result. He asked her to marry him five times before she eventually answered, “Okay.”
According to Harper’s Bazaar, Joe Biden married Jill Biden in 1977 and had their daughter, future activist Ashley Biden, in 1981. Jill stated in a video for the Democratic National Convention that following the birth of Ashley, “our family was complete.” Biden was part of a historic Supreme Court nomination that same year. President Ronald Reagan then suggested Sandra Day O’Connor for a seat on the Supreme Court. After a 99-to-0 vote in the Senate, she became the Supreme Court’s first female justice.
In a speech to his colleagues before the vote, Biden “said he “enthusiastically” supported the nomination because Judge O’Connor had demonstrated legal skill, moral character, and judicial temperament,” according to the New York Times. “That is all I have to ask,” Biden continued. He also inquired whether any of the visitors or “tourists,” in the room had anything to say about the nomination.
Joe Biden has amazing political qualities to be elected to the Senate at such a young age. According to Time, Biden “was already seen as White House material” when he was appointed in 1972. By 1987, Biden had stated his intention to run for President in the 1988 election.
“He was considered by quite a few people at the time as a bright new hope, different from other Democrats.” As one of seven Democratic contenders known as the “Seven Dwarfs,” Biden received a mixed reaction from voters. However, a plagiarism issue effectively ended his chances of being nominated.
Biden was caught without referencing British politician Neil Kinnock’s speech. The press also discovered “previous instances in which Biden had failed to properly cite Humphrey and Robert Kennedy.” Finally, it was revealed that “Biden failed a course at Syracuse University Law School because he wrote a paper that used five pages from a published law-review article without quotation marks or a proper footnote.”
After the incident, Biden stepped out of the campaign, but his problems were far from ending. The senator soon after “had a headache that turned out to be a brain aneurysm.” Following surgery, doctors discovered another aneurysm, which necessitated surgery once more. “There is no doubt — the doctors have no doubt — that if I had stayed in the race, I would have died,” Biden said.
As the 1990s progressed, Joe Biden returned to his political origins and concentrated on the Senate. According to the Office of the Clerk of the United States House of Representatives, he was re-elected as a Senator of Delaware. Biden was also the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he had held since 1987.
As a result of this significant role, the senator introduced a progressive bill. “In 1990, I introduced the Violence Against Women Act.” “We started out believing that exposing the toll of domestic violence on American families was the only way to change the culture,” Biden told Time.
Biden urged men and women to relate their heartbreaking stories of domestic violence and abuse in order to persuade the other senators. The act took over four years to become a reality, but it was finally signed into law in 1994 by President Bill Clinton. And Biden described it as his “proudest legislative accomplishment.”
During this time, the senator was also extensively interested in foreign policy. For example, the Los Angeles Times stated in 1991 that “he had voted against authorization for the Persian Gulf War.” Biden also demonstrated bravery on the international stage. During a business trip, Biden met Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia’s president at the time. According to The Washington Post, Biden “called him a ‘damned war criminal’” in front of him.
One consistency in Joe Biden’s years as a senator was his method of getting to work. Biden would travel the Amtrak train from Delaware to Washington D.C. every day and then return by rail at night. Biden began in 1972, and after decades of the same pattern, he got the moniker “Amtrak Joe.”
“I began making the 110-mile commute shortly after I was sworn in as a Senator,” Biden wrote for the Huffington Post. It was the only way I could have become a Senator. After losing their mother and sister in a car accident a month before, I needed to be able to return home and spend evenings with my two sons.”
When it was his birthday on a workday, Biden told an adorable story. Biden’s daughter was planning a party, but the senator needed to be in Washington, D.C., for a vote. According to Biden, he left early in the evening, “boarded the train, and my daughter was standing there on the middle platform in Wilmington.” “She and my wife sang ‘Happy Birthday,’ I blew out the candle, took a piece of cake, opened her gift, kissed her,” I said before hopping back on the train to vote.
Biden traveled the train for 36 years, finally getting off when he was appointed Vice President. Biden stated at the time, “I’ve taken more than 7,000 round trips on Amtrak over the course of my career.”
“On April 25, 2019, Biden announced his candidacy for President of the United States,” the official White House website states. “Biden’s candidacy was built from the start around three pillars: the battle for our nation’s soul, the need to rebuild our middle class — the backbone of our country, and a call for unity, to act as One America,” the website continued.
And his effort to put his approach into action means facing off against the incumbent candidate, President Donald Trump. The 2020 election results were one of the most tense times in political history. According to the Pew Research Center, voter turnout increased by 7% compared to the 2016 election.
In addition, “66% of U.S. adult citizens” voted in the 2020 election. Biden won the election, prompting Trump to make unfounded charges of voter fraud. It took Trump nearly a month to admit that Biden would be taking over as president.
Biden took office following an emotional triumph and had to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. “In the days and weeks before entering office, he said his goal was 100 million vaccinations” in his first 100 days, according to NBC. Biden exceeded his initial goal and changed his plan to “200 million vaccinations in his first 100 days.” With one week till the 100-day milestone, Biden fulfilled his target of 200 million immunizations.
