Joe Biden is the Democratic Party’s moderate candidate. The seventy-seven-year-old long-term senator
from Delaware was Barack Obama’s Vice President. Biden has had a tragic
personal life: his first wife and daughter died in a traffic accident
in the 1970s, and in 2015 he lost his eldest son to brain cancer. Biden is an establishment figure
with solid support from the Democratic Party. Nevertheless, he did not
look convincing as a 2020 presidential candidate until a crucial endorsement
came from Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking African-American Democrat in
Congress. This led to wins across the Southern states, and the backing of prominent figures, including former presidential contenders Pete
Buttigieg — the first openly gay candidate in American history — and
Michael Bloomberg, a former Republican and one of the richest people in
the world. A week later, Biden went on to win Michigan – another delegate-rich state – as well as Mississippi and Missouri. Critics think Biden “old-fashioned and un-presidential”
as he has a tendency to make verbal mistakes or gaffes (calling Super
Tuesday “Super Thursday”, for example.) He has faced Republican
insinuations about his younger son’s business activities in the Ukraine,
and a number of women have called his conduct towards them “inappropriate.”