"Biden" and "Joseph Biden" redirect here. For his son Joseph Biden III, see Beau Biden. For other uses, see Biden (disambiguation).
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (/ˈbaɪdən/ BY-dən; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician and the president-elect of the United States. Having defeated incumbent Donald Trump in the 2020 United States presidential election, he will be inaugurated as the 46th president on January 20, 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, Biden served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 and a United States senator for Delaware from 1973 to 2009.
Raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and New Castle County, Delaware, Biden studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University in 1968.
He was elected a New Castle County Councillor in 1970, and became the sixth-youngest senator in American history when he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Delaware in 1972, at the age of 29. Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and eventually its chairman. He opposed the Gulf War in 1991, but supported expanding the NATO alliance into Eastern Europe and its intervention in the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. He supported the resolution authorizing the Iraq War in 2002, but opposed the surge of U.S. troops in 2007. He also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, dealing with drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties issues; led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act; and oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and again in 2008.
Biden was reelected to the Senate six times, and was the fourth-most senior senator when he resigned to serve as Barack Obama's vice president after they won the 2008 presidential election; Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012. As vice president, Biden oversaw infrastructure spending in 2009 to counteract the Great Recession. His negotiations with congressional Republicans helped pass legislation including the 2010 Tax Relief Act, which resolved a taxation deadlock; the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved a debt ceiling crisis; and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending "fiscal cliff".
He also led efforts to pass the United States–Russia New START treaty, supported military intervention in Libya, and helped formulate U.S. policy toward Iraq through the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011. Following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, he led the Gun Violence Task Force. In January 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction.
In April 2019, Biden announced his candidacy in the 2020 presidential election, and he reached the delegate threshold needed to secure the Democratic nomination in June 2020. On August 11, he announced U.S. senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate. Biden defeated Trump in the November 3 election. He is the second non-incumbent vice president to be elected president, after Richard Nixon in 1968.
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania,:5 to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, he has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James.:9 Jean was of Irish descent,:8 while Joseph Sr. had English, French, and Irish ancestry.
Biden's father was initially wealthy but had suffered several financial setbacks by the time Biden was born; for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden's father could not find steady work. Beginning in 1953, the family lived for several years in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, then moved to a house in Wilmington, Delaware. Joe Biden Sr. later became a successful used car salesman, maintaining the family a middle-class lifestyle