Even as a high-schooler, Joe Biden had declared to his father’s friend who asked about life goals, “I want to be president of the United States.”

In his first bid, for the 1988 Democratic nomination, Biden had a high-profile leadership role in the run-up to his campaign. As Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, he was set to preside over the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Robert Bork, starting on September 15, 1987. But two weeks before the hearings began, Biden plagiarized a speech by British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock during his closing remarks at a debate at the Iowa State Fair. The press swarmed, uncovering other incidents when Biden had appropriated material dating back to his school days. As a law student at Syracuse University, he cribbed from a law review article without citation for a class paper. Later as a politician, he failed to credit words he used that belonged to Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. Biden had claimed to have finished in the top half of his law school class when he was 76 out of 85 classmates. Having announced his candidacy for president on June 9, 1987, he abandoned the race on September 23.

Even more alarming, in 1988, Biden suffered two brain aneurysms, which doctors successfully repaired in intricate neurosurgery.

On January 31, 2007, Biden launched his run for the 2008 presidency. But, on the same day, the media reported that he had described another candidate, Barack Obama, as “the first sort of mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean.” Reporters unearthed other instances unrelated to Obama when Biden’s casual comments had sounded racially insensitive. His campaign never recovered. Biden trudged along, attracting little attention, and, after a dismal showing in the Iowa caucuses on January 3, 2008, he ended his second failed attempt to fulfill his political dream.

The 2020 Election

Biden’s run for the presidency in 2020 looked similarly doomed at the outset. He entered the race on April 25, 2019, declaring: “We are in the battle for the soul of this nation.” He cited as his motivation President Trump’s reaction to the violent white supremacist invasion of Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, when Trump asserted that there were “very fine people on both sides.” Biden presented himself as the candidate who could rid the country of Trump’s divisiveness and heal political polarization by restoring the nation’s soul. Recognizing the danger of the spreading coronavirus pandemic, Biden limited public rallies, often campaigning from his Delaware home via video links. He made Trump’s chaotic management of the pandemic a cornerstone of his argument while the president held his own rallies with supporters crowded together unmasked.

Initially, Biden’s appeal failed to resonate with Democratic voters. They deemed him too old and too conservative for the young progressives in the party aligned with rival Vermont senator, Bernie Sanders, who wanted to push the party leftward. Critics emphasized potential health issues for the then-77-year-old candidate. In December 2019, Biden released a medical assessment that noted he was healthy and vigorous and had not had any aneurysm recurrences.

Yet Biden finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and, in the New Hampshire primary, he dropped to fifth place. He rose to second in the Nevada contest but was a distant second behind Sanders, whom the media now labeled as the front runner. As Biden appeared headed for a third disastrous nomination attempt, he focused all his efforts on the South Carolina primary, the first in a series of states where African American voters played a significant role. When Biden won the endorsement of the influential South Carolina congressman, James E. Clyburn, his campaign gained new momentum. He captured 48.6 percent of the vote in South Carolina, decisively defeating Sanders who tallied 19.8 percent, marking a startling turnaround for the former vice president.

Biden gained the endorsements of former campaign rivals Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg. After he won 10 of 14 states on Super Tuesday, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker threw their support behind the surging Biden. As he garnered victories and delegates in subsequent primaries, Sanders bowed out on April 8, paving the way for Biden’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention. As the presumptive nominee, Biden kept his promise to name a woman as his running mate, choosing Senator Kamala Harris, a former California attorney general of Black and Indian descent, a move that acknowledged the aspirations of both women and people of color.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 Democratic National Convention, was nearly all virtual and produced to appeal to television viewers confined to their homes. Ironically, this creativity made it “simply more compelling to watch than the fusty, arena-bound version that rolls around every four years,” wrote Lorraine Ali, a television critic for the Los Angeles Times.

Biden and Harris delivered their acceptance speeches in a largely empty venue in Wilmington, Delaware, and then watched fireworks with car-bound supporters in a parking lot outside the arena. They honked their horns and flashed their headlights to celebrate the Democratic ticket.

Biden’s speech underscored that Trump had “cloaked America in darkness . . . anger . . . fear [and] division.” The candidate pledged to bring America together. “United we can, and will, overcome this season of darkness in America,” he declared, adding, “we will choose hope over fear, facts over fiction, fairness over privilege.” He drew a sharp distinction between himself and Trump, promising to offer generosity, compassion, and character amid the coronavirus pandemic that at the time of the convention had killed 170,000 people. Biden painted Trump and his response to the pandemic in stark terms. “Our current president has failed in his most basic duty to this nation. He failed to protect us. He failed to protect America.”

Because of the pandemic, many Americans voted early and by mail, prompting President Trump to assert, without evidence, that fraud may have tainted the outcome. On election night, November 3, early returns based on votes cast at the polls that day—mainly by Republicans—indicated a lead for Trump. Close to 2:30 a.m., Trump announced falsely that he had won the election and demanded that all vote counting stop. Over the next several days, election officials throughout the country counted all the votes, including the early and mail-in ballots, submitted mostly by Democrats. On November 7, 2020, the major news networks and the Associated Press declared Biden the winner. Along with Biden as president, Harris became the first woman, the first Black, and first South Asian American to be elected vice president.

A record number of voters participated in 2020, casting nearly 160 million votes. The turnout among eligible voters was the highest in 120 years: 66.2 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, surpassed only by the election of 1900 when 73.7 percent voted. Trump continued to cry fraud and launched dozens of legal challenges, which courts dismissed, until finally the Electoral College met on December 14 and ratified Biden’s victory with a solid majority of 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. Biden won 81 million votes overall, 7 million more than Trump’s 74 million. Despite his clear defeat in the popular vote and the Electoral College, Trump continued to claim, with no proof, that he had won the election and that the voting was fraudulent.

The consequences of Trump’s false claims became clear to the nation on January 6, 2021, when thousands of Trump supporters, including those affiliated with the Proud Boys and other paramilitary and white supremacist groups, assembled in Washington, DC, for a Trump event known as the “Stop the Steal.” The president invited them to go “wild” in Washington to protest the results of the 2020 presidential election. The president and his minions inflamed the armed mob gathered at the Ellipse behind the White House, and Trump urged them to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell.” He would be there with them, he promised the insurgents.

Using clubs, flag poles, and bear spray, the rioters overwhelmed Capitol and Washington police, smashed windows, and broke down doors to rampage through the building, where members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence were meeting to certify the election results, as required by the Constitution. Security rushed Pence and congressional members out of harm's way. But police were unable to contain the intruders who entered the Senate chamber, broke into offices, stole government property, vandalized historic spaces and artifacts, desecrated the corridors of power, shouted for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to confront them, and chanted, “Hang Mike Pence,” as their comrades displayed a noose and gallows on the Capitol grounds. Informed of the insurrection underway, Trump, back at the White House, did nothing to stop the attack on his vice president or the legislative branch.

On the day of Biden’s inauguration, Trump left Washington in a fit of pique before his successor’s swearing-in.

The 2024 Election

Recognizing his advancing age, Biden had indicated in 2020 that a new generation would probably follow in his footsteps, which some interpreted as a pledge to serve only one term. Yet as the 2024 election drew closer, with Trump improbably on his way to the Republican nomination, despite civil and criminal litigation against him, Biden showed no signs of stepping out of the race for another term.

On April 25, 2023, he announced his candidacy. With his approval rating well under water (41 to 50 percent), the Biden-Harris ticket faced an uphill battle for reelection. The Biden administration was challenged by high inflation reaching 7 percent in Biden’s first year, the chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Hamas’s devastating attack on Israel in 2023. The obvious physical and mental toll that the presidency had taken on the now octogenarian chief executive also contributed to the public’s disapproval.

Nevertheless, no viable Democrats chose to challenge the incumbent president, and he sailed through the primaries and caucuses. By March 12, 2024, Biden had amassed enough delegates to win the nomination.

Stumbling through speeches, avoiding the press, and walking with a stiff and uncertain gait only added to Biden’s image problems. Trump and the GOP attacked him mercilessly for driving up the cost of groceries, fuel, housing, and all consumer goods; weakening the United States on the world stage; and supporting initiatives to promote diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI), including support for transgender Americans.

The first presidential debate on June 27, 2024, offered Biden an opportunity to dispel rumors about his health and confront Trump over his efforts to derail democracy on January 6, 2021. Looking diminished, confused, and disengaged, the president squandered his chance to win that night’s contest.

Indeed, “fiasco” became the most common description of Biden’s performance, and calls from the party and electorate for him to abandon the race only increased. When Democratic leaders such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer could no longer voice support, Biden announced his departure from the race on July 21 and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the ticket.

The Democratic Party united behind her and Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, as the vice-presidential nominee, but they had only three months to mount a campaign. Focusing on reproductive rights, providing financial assistance to struggling Americans, and saving democracy, Harris performed well in her debates with Trump, and Walz injected his Midwestern populism into the race for vice president against Senator JD Vance’s Ivy League background and Silicon Valley financier experience. Nevertheless, the Harris-Walz ticket lost to Trump and Vance by a little over 2 million votes, seeing all 7 of the so-called swing states go to the GOP.

No one will ever know whether Democrats could have defeated Trump if Biden had stepped aside early enough to allow the party a genuine primary contest to choose their strongest candidate. Trump’s victory proved that his brand of anti-government populism, false promises to lower costs, and demagogic attacks on transgender people trumped more abstract arguments for bolstering democracy.