A life of tragedy and resilience Biden calls time on consequential political career

Joe Biden's historic decision yesterday to step down as the Democratic nominee for president signals an imminent end to one of the most consequential American political careers.

- Martin Pengelly

At 81, the oldest president ever sworn in has finally yielded to time - and his own party. Someone else, most likely the vice-president, Kamala Harris, will face Donald Trump in November.

Biden will remain in the White House until 20 January, but Democrats and Republicans will soon survey something new: a political landscape without Joe Biden at its centre.

Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1942, Biden attended the University of Delaware and Syracuse law school, became a public defender, then entered politics. A natural campaigner, in 1972, he ran for US Senate aged 29, scoring a huge upset over J Caleb Boggs, a two-term Republican more than twice his age.

The same year voters gave the Republican Richard Nixon a landslide win. Nixon was the 37th president. In 2021, Biden would become the 46th. In that 49-year span, as eight presidents came and went, Biden was a senator for 36 years, vice-president for eight.

As a junior senator, Biden suffered his first, but not last, tragedy when a car crash killed his wife, Neilia Biden, and one-yearold daughter, Naomi, at Christmas in 1972. He became known for riding the rails, from Delaware to Washington and back, to care for his sons, Beau and Hunter.

He married his second wife, Jill Jacobs, in 1977, and their daughter, Ashley, was born four years later.