Electoral history of Joe Biden

This article is part of a series about Joe Biden
Personal Early life and career Eponyms Family Honors Presidential library Public image Age and health concerns SNL parodies The Onion parody Bibliography Post-presidency 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 Tenure 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 Presidency timeline Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board Inauguration Efforts to impeach inquiry Tenure First 100 days 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 president of the United States (2021–2025), has run for public office several times, beginning in 1970. He served as the 47th vice president (2009–2017), and as a United States senator from Delaware (1973–2009). Biden is the second oldest person elected president and the first president from Delaware.^[1] He is a member of the Democratic Party, one of two major parties in the United States.

Biden began his political career in 1970 in New Castle County, Delaware by unseating incumbent County Councilman Lawrence T. Messick.^[2] In 1972, at age 29, he became the seventh-youngest senator in American history when he was elected to the United States Senate in Delaware.^[3] Between 1978 and 2008, he won re-election to the Senate six times before resigning in 2009 to assume the role of Barack Obama's vice president after they won the 2008 presidential election. They were re-elected to a second term in 2012. All of Biden's senatorial and county council campaigns were managed by his sister, Valerie Biden Owens. Owens also served as campaign manager for his first two presidential campaigns.^[4]

Biden announced his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination on April 25, 2019. A total of 29 major candidates declared their candidacies for the primaries, but over time the field narrowed down to Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Following Sanders withdrawing from the race, Biden became the presumptive nominee. He defeated incumbent president Donald Trump in the general election, with 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232. Biden was the first Democrat to win the states of Arizona and Georgia since the 1990s and broke the record for votes cast for a presidential candidate. While he intended to run for re-election in 2024, following calls from various prominent Democrats he withdrew from the race.

Biden has never lost a general election, though he failed to win the Democratic nomination for president in 1988 and 2008. All three of the winning Democratic presidential tickets of the 21st century had Biden on the ticket, either as president or vice president.^[5]