The death of his wife and children, a record career and a 30-year journey to the White House: the personal story of Joe Biden

The next president of the United States will be the representative of the Democratic Party, Joe Biden: according to preliminary voting results, he was significantly ahead of the incumbent President Donald Trump. Much has been said about Biden's political ambitions. ForumDaily invites you to learn more about the life and personality of this person. Who is Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. and what did he go through on his way to the White House?

Photo: Shutterstock

Biden, who was a Senator from Delaware for more than 35 years and served as vice president in the administration of the 44th US head of state Barack Obama, is considered one of the most authoritative and experienced representatives of the Democratic Party. At the time of his inauguration on January 20, 2021, he will be 78 years old: thus, he will become the oldest president in the first term in the history of the United States, recalls DW... This is a man who has spent nearly half a century in American politics.

A native of the state where the fate of the 2020 election was decided

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. was born in 1942 in Scranton, Pennsylvania to a middle-class Catholic family. He was the eldest of four children. His parents were wealthy enough, but when Biden turned 13, after several unsuccessful projects, the family began to experience financial difficulties, says "Present Tense".

They soon moved from industrial Pennsylvania to neighboring Delaware, where they settled in Wilmington. There, the father of the future politician made his living by reselling used cars.

Biden grew up as an ordinary child for those places: he studied at a Catholic school, played American football and baseball. He did not study brilliantly, but thanks to his charisma and oratory skills in the last two years of school he served as class president. This happened despite the fact that in his youth, Biden suffered from severe stuttering and because of this was even the object of ridicule by his classmates.

After leaving school, the future president entered the University of Delaware and studied to be a lawyer. He later attended Syracuse University in New York State and received a Juris Doctor, which allowed him to practice law.

Family tragedy

In 1966, at the age of 24, Biden married for the first time - to Neilia Hunter, also a student at Syracuse University. The couple later returned to Delaware, where Biden passed the exam required to practice law. By that time, they already had three children.

In 1972, Neilia and the couple's one-year-old daughter, Naomi, were killed in a car accident: that evening, a woman and her children drove by car to go shopping for Christmas. Biden's eldest sons Hunter and Bo, who were in the same vehicle, were injured. The accident occurred when Biden was 29 years old and a few weeks after he was first elected as a senator: at that time he became the sixth youngest senator in US history.

Biden first announced his intention to step down from the Senate office to take care of children after his wife's death. But colleagues and associates convinced him not to. As a result, the young senator received the nickname Amtrak Joe: for several years he had to travel every day on the Amtrak train from Delaware to Washington and back, torn between his work in the Senate and the house where his children lived.

On the subject: Contender for victory: presidential ambitions, millions in royalties and personal tragedies of Joe Biden

Second marriage and large family

In 1975, Biden met his current wife, English teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs, whom he married two years later. While in the process of divorcing her first husband, Jill agreed to a blind date. She did not know that the meeting was organized by the brother of the famous Senator Joe Biden, who was 9 years older than her. But the age difference did not prevent the couple - they quickly found a common language, writes "The country".

“We went to see the movie A Man and a Woman at a movie theater in Philadelphia. And we had a really good time. After walking me home, he shook my hand and wished me good night. I went upstairs, called my mom at one in the morning and said: “Mom, I think I’ve finally met a real gentleman,” Jill said in an interview with Vogue magazine.

The senator had been seeking her hand and heart for two years, four times unsuccessfully proposing to legalize the relationship, and only for the fifth time did Jill agree. On June 17, 1977, the lovers exchanged vows at the United Nations Chapel in New York. Young Bo and Hunter were standing next to them at the altar. Four years later, in 1981, the couple had a daughter, Ashley. Mrs Biden did not formally adopt the Biden boys, but she always referred to them as her children.

“By that time, I had really grown to love the boys and felt that this marriage could have a positive effect on them,” Jill said. “They lost their mother, and I couldn’t let them lose another one.”

Despite moving to the Vice President's residence in Washington as Second Lady, Jill Biden (M.D. and professor) taught English courses at Virginia North College, the country's second largest college. "Wikipedia"... Biden became the first ever working Second Lady during her husband's tenure.

Only now, for the first time since 1981, Biden took a break from her teaching practice to support her husband's election campaign. Even when her husband was vice president (2009-2019) and Jill was the second most powerful woman in the country, she continued to teach. In addition, she was involved in the development of community colleges, helped military families and participated in a public campaign dedicated to the prevention of breast cancer, writes "TASS".

Photo: Shutterstock

Ashley Biden heads the Delaware Justice Center, where she works with ex-prisoners to help them socialize, and has been releasing clothes under the Livelihood brand since 2017 - the proceeds of which go to local charities. In 2012, Ashley married a medic Howard Crane. The couple has no children yet.

Beau Biden, who followed his father into politics, died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 45. Hunter, now 50, has struggled with alcohol and drug addiction for decades, and his work on the boards of several companies, including Ukraine's Burisma in 2014-2019, has raised many questions and allegations of corruption.

Joe Biden has seven grandchildren. From his first marriage, Hunter Biden had daughters Naomi (she is now 26 years old, and in May she graduated from Columbia Law School), Finnegan and Macy, from the second - a child whose name has not yet been released. Natalie and Robert Hunter Biden II are the sons of the late Beau Biden. The seventh grandson - the illegitimate child of Hunter Biden - was not presented to the public, writes Gazeta.ru.

Into the White House on the third try

In total, Biden worked in Washington for almost half a century, including 35 years as a Senator and eight years as Vice President under Barack Obama, from 2009 to 2017. Although in 35 years the politician has never lost a Senate election, there have been enough failures in his political career.

The first time he ran for president of the Democratic Party was in 1987 at the age of 46. But then he withdrew his candidacy from the primaries - after investigating journalists that he used fragments of speeches from other politicians in his speeches, and also plagiarized scientific work when he was studying to be a lawyer at the university. Because of this, as the journalists found out, Biden even had to take one of the courses again, which the teachers did not count on him on the first try.

In 2007, Biden again nominated himself for US President. However, during the year of campaigning, he was unable to win sufficient support among voters and party colleagues and withdrew his candidacy from the primaries. Announcing the news, he said: "I'm not going anywhere and will continue to do what I do."

In May 2008, it became known that Barack Obama, who at that time was considered the most likely presidential candidate from the Democratic Party, was considering Biden's candidacy as vice president. In August 2008, this was officially announced.

Obama has twice elected Biden as his running mate. Political experts believe that this was primarily due to the senator's foreign policy experience: Biden headed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee three times, traveled a lot abroad and participated in negotiations on trade and nuclear disarmament. Back in 1979, he met with the leadership of the USSR, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he supported NATO expansion.

How Biden walked to the presidency

For a while, it looked as though Biden's bid for the 2020 nomination might be a repeat of his previous failed attempts at conquering the White House: the first primaries and debates within the Democratic Party in 2020 did not show his clear leadership. However, in the end it was he who won the nomination from his party.

Biden announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States in April 2019. As people from his inner circle said, the decision was made after several months of hesitation and after almost two dozen other candidates, younger, more liberal or left-wing, entered the race.

Against their background, Biden sought to present himself as a person who would ensure the stability of the country. According to him, this is necessary for America, which during the Trump presidency has become a “battleground” on racial, social and other issues.

“We are in a battle for the soul of this nation,” Biden said in a video announcing his presidential bid. He said that if Trump remains in office for another four years, he will "permanently and fundamentally change the character of this nation, who we are."

“And I cannot stand by and watch this happen,” he emphasized.

At a rally in Georgia on October 27, the politician expanded on this idea: “I know this country. I know our people. And I know we can come together and heal this nation."

Political analysts emphasize that Biden was able to hold out in politics for so long because he has the ability to communicate with voters and win their sympathy, including through shared experiences of personal adversity. Biden performed poorly in his first intraparty debate in early and mid-February, and at times seemed out of touch and disoriented. But soon thereafter, he began to gain points, gradually winning votes from young voters - the very ones who initially supported more left-wing and liberal candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Biden's victory in the Democratic primary "can be attributed to the simple fact that most people like 'Uncle Joe,'" columnist Max Boot wrote in the Washington Post in March. This was especially evident during his election debate with Donald Trump, in which Biden chose a softer and more friendly demeanor than his opponent.

In his campaign, he focused on the fact that Trump did not cope with the coronavirus pandemic in the United States and because of this, more than 200 thousand people had died across the country by the end of September.

“Anyone who is responsible for so many deaths should not remain president of the United States of America,” Biden said during his October 22 debate with Trump.

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President-elect of the United States

Joe Biden received more popular vote than any other presidential candidate in US history, with 5 million votes as of the morning of November 72,1. Thus, he broke the record set by Barack Obama in 2008.

Biden will take over the Oval Office at the White House on January 20, 2021. He will have to deal with the problems associated with soaring unemployment, migration policies and racial discrimination. In addition, he will have to develop a new strategy to combat the coronavirus.

In foreign policy, Biden will have to mend tainted relations with key European allies, most notably Germany and France. He will also have to decide on a policy towards Russia and solve problems in relations with China, which during the Trump presidency turned from cooperation into a trade war.

The fact that Democrats ultimately chose an experienced politician over younger candidates is not surprising, said University of Missouri professor Mitchell McKinney. He sees Biden as a sane, consistent, empathetic and empathetic politician - the polar opposite of Trump, who liked to call his opponent "Slow Joe."

Biden is famous for getting along with colleagues, even if their views do not coincide.

“He worked in Congress for a long time and knows how to find a common language with everyone,” says political scientist and professor at the University of Texas at Austin, Bruce Buchanan, in an interview with DW.

“It’s hard to find a person in Washington who really doesn’t like Joe Biden. “He has a reputation as a pleasant, friendly person who has worked very successfully with Republicans in Congress for many years,” Buchanan said. Some Republican senators have already made it clear ahead of the election that they would be willing to work with Biden if he becomes president.

By the way, on October 16, the current US President Donald Trump, during a meeting with voters in the state of Georgia, called his electoral rival "the worst candidate in the history of presidential politics" and joked that he might have will have to leave the country if he loses to Joe Biden. The famous rapper 50 Cent made the same promise because of the high tax burden on the rich that Biden promises to introduce. Is there a grain of humor in every joke? Wait and see.

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