U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has a vast amount of political experience as a longtime senator and two-term vice president, while his trademark empathy is considered authentic due to his own experiences with personal tragedy.
Biden, 77, a self-styled champion of the middle class, was born in the blue-collar city of Scranton in the eastern state of Pennsylvania. When he was 10 years old, his father moved the family to adjacent Delaware in search of better employment opportunities.
After practicing law, Biden pursued a career in politics.
At age 29, Biden became one of the youngest people ever elected to the U.S. Senate. He served in the upper house for 36 years and ran as vice president alongside Barack Obama, the first black president in U.S. history, holding office for eight years from 2009.
During his political career, Biden has been forced to endure personal tragedies. Just weeks after he was first elected senator, he lost his first wife and their 1-year-old daughter in a car accident. His two young sons were also severely injured in the crash.
He was sworn in to the Senate at his sons' hospital bedside. The single father began making a three-hour round-trip commute to Washington by train, returning to Delaware each night to spend time with his family -- a practice he maintained throughout his career in the Senate and which became a calling card of his common touch appeal.
Biden later lost his eldest son Beau, who was a rising star in Democratic politics, to brain cancer at the age of 46.
The personal grief Biden has endured in losing family members has helped define him as a person of compassion and empathy. In his youth, he also struggled to overcome a stutter, an experience he has described as having given him insight into other people's suffering.
Biden's past presidential bids have ended poorly, with his first run for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination hit by a speech plagiarism scandal.
He also campaigned for the party's 2008 nomination, but dropped out after not attracting widespread support. He was ultimately chosen as Obama's running mate and went on to serve as his vice president.
Biden, however, is prone to verbal gaffes and his old age is also considered a weakness. If elected, Biden would be the oldest U.S. president ever at the date of inauguration at age 78.
Biden married his wife Jill, a community college professor and a former high school English teacher, in 1977 and they have a daughter, Ashley.
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