Joe Biden Then and Now: From being US senator at 30 to eyeing second term as president at 80
Joe Biden is the only American president to turn 80 while in office
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr, also known as Joe Biden, is the 46th President of the United States. Prior to his election, he spent two terms as President Barack Obama's vice president and 36 years as a senator from Delaware. He became the oldest president in American history in 2021 when he assumed office at the age of 78. Observe Biden's milestones over the course of his 50-year political career.
1972: Young Joe Biden elected as Senator
Biden, who earned degrees in political science and history from the University of Delaware and law from Syracuse University, was a Delaware county councilman at the time of his first election to the US Senate in 1972 at the age of 29. Shortly after Biden's election as Senator, his first wife Neilia and their baby daughter Naomi died in a car accident, injuring their two small sons.
1987: Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary
As the senator from Delaware with the longest tenure, Biden was re-elected to the Senate six times. Biden made his first presidential run in 1987. He, however, withdrew his presidential run three months later due to plagiarism in his 1988 presidential campaign.
1988: Joe Biden undergoes surgery to fix aneurysm
Biden missed seven months of Senate business in 1988 due to a pulmonary embolism and aneurysm. He opted for surgery to prevent an aneurysm rupture.
1991: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden
As a seasoned senator, Biden chaired the Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1987 to 1995, presiding over Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas' nomination hearings to the Supreme Court.
2007: Joe Biden participates in 2007 presidential debate
In January 2007, Biden announced his intention to run for president once more. However, he eventually withdrew from the race a year later after the Iowa caucus.
2008: Barack Obama selects Joe Biden as his running mate
Biden was chosen by Barack Obama to be his running mate seven months later. In January 2009, Biden took the oath of office as vice president after the Obama-Biden ticket won the presidency.
2009: Joe Biden became the 47th Vice President of the United States
Biden became the 47th Vice President of the United States, while Barack Obama became the country's first Black president.
2012: Obama and Biden are re-elected, defeating Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan
In 2012, Obama and Biden were re-elected, defeating Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in the electoral college with 332 votes.
2017: Obama surprises Biden by presenting him the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Obama gave Biden a "surprise" Presidential Medal of Freedom in January 2017, before he left office. Joe Biden, taken aback by the accolade, started crying. "To know Joe Biden is to know love without pretense, service without self-regard, and to live life fully," Obama had said at the time.
2019: Joe Biden runs for president
Biden declared in April 2019 that he would run for president, having declined in 2016. "We are in the battle for the soul of this nation," Biden stated, adding that Trump "will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are, and I cannot stand by and watch that happen."
2020: Joe Biden selects Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate
Senator Kamala Harris became the first Black woman and person of Indian origin to be on a presidential ticket when Biden chose her as his running mate. During his victory address, Biden expressed his humility at the support and faith that the electorate had in him.
2021: Joe Biden sworn in as 46th President of the United States
On January 20, 2021, Biden took the oath of office as the 46th President of the United States, only two weeks after a crowd stormed the Capitol and protested the legitimacy of election results.
2022: Joe Biden nominates Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court
Biden proposed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court in February, and she was confirmed by the US Senate in April, becoming the first Black woman to hold a position on the country's highest court.
2023: Joe Biden declares he'll run for president again for second-term
In an official video released on April 24, exactly four years after he tossed his hat into the 2020 race, Biden announced he will seek a second term as president of the United States in the 2024 election. Were he to win in 2024 on the Democrat ticket, he'd be 86 yeards old by the end of his second term. "When I ran for president four years ago, I said we are in a battle for the soul of America. And we still are. The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer," Biden said in a 3-minute video announcing his run.