Electoral history of Joe Biden

This article is part of a series about Joe Biden
Personal Early life and career Eponyms Family Honors Public image Age and health concerns SNL parodies Bibliography U.S. Senator from Delaware U.S. Senate career Judiciary Committee Bork hearings Thomas hearings 1994 Crime Bill Violence Against Women Act Foreign Relations Committee Elections 1972 1978 1984 1990 1996 2002 2008 47th Vice President of the United States Transition Obama administration first inauguration second inauguration Economic policy Great Recession response 2010 Tax Relief Act 2011 debt-ceiling crisis fiscal cliff Foreign policy Task forces Gun Violence Protect Students from Sexual Assault Vice presidential campaigns 2008 election selection convention debates 2012 election convention debates 46th President of the United States Incumbent Presidency timeline Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board Inauguration Efforts to impeach inquiry Tenure Executive actions proclamations Trips foreign '21 '22 '23 '24–'25 Geneva summit COVID-19 pandemic Afghanistan withdrawal Classified documents incident 2023 debt-ceiling crisis Policies COVID-19 WH Response Team Economy ARP IIJA IRA Electoral/ethics Environment Foreign policy AUKUS Camp David Principles IPEF War in Ukraine War in Israel Immigration border crisis Social issues guns cannabis marriage Appointments Cabinet Ambassadors Federal judges Jackson Supreme Court candidates Executive Office U.S. attorneys Presidential campaigns 1988 primaries 2008 primaries 2020 primaries election sexual assault allegation Ukraine conspiracy theory convention debates endorsements VP selection 2024 primaries debate endorsements opposition withdrawal
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Joe Biden, the 46th and current president of the United States,^[1] has run for public office several times, beginning in 1970. Biden served as the 47th vice president (2009–2017), and as a United States senator from Delaware (1973–2009). Biden is the oldest elected and serving president, the second Catholic president, after John F. Kennedy, and the first president from Delaware.

Biden has never lost a general election, though he failed to win the Democratic nomination for president in 1984, 1988, and 2008. The first three winning Democratic presidential tickets of the 21st century had Biden on the ticket, either as president or vice president. A member of the Democratic Party, Biden was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970, and became the seventh-youngest senator in American history when he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Delaware in 1972, at the age of 29. He was re-elected to the Senate six times, and was the fourth-most senior senator. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in both 1988 and 2008. In January 2009, Biden resigned from the Senate, to serve as Barack Obama's vice president, after they won the 2008 presidential election. They were re-elected to a second term in 2012.

Biden announced his candidacy in the 2020 presidential election on April 25, 2019.^[2] A total of 29 major candidates declared their candidacies for the primaries, the largest field of presidential candidates for any American political party since 1972;^[3] but over time, the field narrowed down to Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont.^[4] Eventually, Sanders withdrew from the race, and Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee in April 2020.^[5] Biden reached the delegate threshold needed to secure the nomination in June 2020.^[6] He defeated incumbent president Donald Trump in the general election, with 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232. Biden received more than 81 million votes, the most votes ever cast for a candidate in a U.S. presidential election.^[7]