When President Biden leaves the White House in January, it will mark the spectacular end of a career in politics that spanned five decades.
Biden, 81, ended his 2024 re-election effort Sunday in the wake of his disastrous June 27 debate performance against former President Donald Trump, which precipitated calls from the Democratic establishment for the octogenarian career politician to drop out of the race.
Here’s a look back at the president’s more than 50 years in public office:
It all started in Delaware
Biden got his first taste of politics in 1970, after winning a seat on the New Castle County Council two years after graduating from Syracuse Law School.
The then-27-year-old ran for the Wilmington, Del., county’s 4th District seat on a liberal platform, which included calling for more public housing, and flipped it blue when he defeated Republican Lawrence Messick.
He served on the county council until 1973.
Seeking ‘national prominence’ in the Senate
In 1972, while still in his first term on the New Castle County Council, Biden launched his first Senate campaign, challenging two-term Sen. J. Caleb Boggs (R-Del.).
HIs campaign succeeded in part by playing on the 33-year age gap between then 29-year-old Biden and the 62-year-old Boggs.
The latest on President Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race:
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- Biden drops out of presidential race: live updates
- Trump slams Biden as ‘worst president in history’ after incumbent drops re-election bid
- Biden offers ‘full endorsement’ of Kamala Harris as 2024 Democratic nominee after dropping out
- A look back at Biden’s more than 50-year career in politics
Biden defeated the Republican incumbent by less than 3,000 votes and assumed office in 1973 as one of the youngest senators in US history.
In his early days in the upper chamber, Biden worked with segregationist Sen. James Eastland (D-Miss.) to oppose busing as a way to desegregate public schools – a position which Vice President Kamala Harris slammed him on during a 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate.
Biden “sought prominence as a national figure” throughout his first term in the Senate, an essay on the president from the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs noted, including by criticizing President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal and President Gerald Ford after he pardoned his predecessor.
Biden, a longtime chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, controversially recommended that the Senate reject President Ronald Reagan’s Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork in 1987.
He also helmed the 1991 hearings on Clarence Thomas’ nomination which put his former law clerk, Anita Hill, under intense scrutiny when she alleged that the then high court nominee sexually harassed her.
In 1994, Biden pushed for a massive federal crime bill which critics argued during his 2020 presidential campaign contributed to the mass incarceration of racial minorities in recent decades.
For 11 years, Biden also served as chairman or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, during which time he pushed for US military intervention in the Balkans, voted against the 1991 war in Iraq and voted for the 2002 Iraq war.
Biden later called his 2002 Iraq war vote a “mistake” and he opposed the successful 2007 troop surge.
First White House run
Biden launched his first presidential campaign in June 1987, halfway into his third term in the Senate.
The campaign was short-lived, as he withdrew from the race three months later after he was caught plagiarizing a speech by British politician Neil Kinnock during a Democratic presidential primary debate in Iowa and allegations of past plagiarism surfaced.
Second unsuccessful presidential bid
In January 2007, Biden announced on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he would be taking a second stab at the White House.
His campaign, centered on his plan to partition Iraq into several autonomous regions and his 36 years of experience in the Senate, failed to gain much momentum.
He drew criticism just days into his campaign when he referred to rival candidate Barack Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
Biden withdrew from the race after finishing fifth in the Iowa Democratic caucuses in January 2008. He received only 1% of the vote in the Hawkeye State.
Biden and Obama
Despite Biden’s racially charged blunder on the campaign trail, Obama tapped him as his running mate in August 2008, and Biden served as his vice president through the entirety of Obama’s two-term presidency.
The Obama White House described Biden as the president’s “point person for diplomacy” and a “leading architect of the US strategic vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace.”
Biden also served as Obama’s trusted negotiator on Capitol Hill, frequently being deployed to leverage his relationships and Senate experience to cut deals with Republican lawmakers.
Obama surprised Biden in the waning days of his presidency by awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor.
“This honor is not only well beyond what I deserve, but it’s a reflection of the extent and generosity of your spirit,” Biden told his then-boss about receiving the honor.
Pathway to the presidency
Despite placing fourth in the Iowa caucuses and fifth in the New Hampshire primary, Biden emerged the victor out of a crowded field of Democratic presidential primary candidates in 2020.
His breakthrough moment was an endorsement by Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) followed by a landslide victory in the South Carolina primary, where he won all of the state’s 46 counties and topped second-place finisher Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) by nearly 20 percentage points.
His general election campaign against Donald Trump centered on the message that the “soul of America” was at stake, and that he would serve as a bridge president between Trump and a new generation of leadership.
He defeated Trump, who has continued to allege that there was widespread fraud during the contest, by securing key wins in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia.
Ambitious agenda
Despite Democrats holding narrow majorities in the House and the Senate, Biden struggled to get several parts of his ambitious agenda through Congress, leaving many of his initiatives unrealized.
As president, he was able to shepherd the $2 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package through Congress, as well as a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act.
His presidency was roiled by accusations that he was involved with his family’s extensive foreign business dealings as vice president, leading to an impeachment inquiry being launched by Republicans last year, as well as the discovery of classified White House documents from his time as vice president at his Penn Biden Center think tank and Wilmington home.
Special Counsel Robert Hur was appointed to investigate the scandal and ultimately decided against leveling criminal charges against Biden, in part because he believed a jury might view the president as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
The chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021– which resulted in the deaths of 13 US servicemembers and left thousands of Americans and American allies stranded in the Taliban-controlled country – was also a lowlight of his presidency.
Biden launched his re-election bid in April 2023, asking voters to give him another four years to help him “finish the job.”
The commander in chief, who at the time was already the oldest president in American history, opted to seek a second term despite plunging support, with polls at the time showing that the majority of Americans, including Democrats, did not want him to reprise his role in the Oval Office for another four years.
The president’s 15 months on the campaign trail did not alleviate voter concern about his age and mental acuity. A second term would’ve seen Biden possibly reach the age of 86 before the end of it.
His disastrous showing at his first debate against Trump in June — during which he appeared incoherent, soft-spoken and at times downright confused — led to calls for him to end his re-election effort, which he ultimately did.