Joe Biden Has Run For President Four Times Now

President Joe Biden has run for President a total of FOUR times over the course of his career, including the most current run in 2024.

One of those Presidential runs resulted in success (2020), one of those Presidential runs resulted in partial success (being named as President Obama's Vice President), and one of those Presidential runs (1988) resulted in failure.

Let's take a look at President Joe Biden's four runs for President:

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1. 1984*

Winning the Democratic primary that year was a thankless task, as President Ronald Reagan was a buzzsaw that was looking to cut down everybody in his path. Any Democratic candidate for President would have been hammered in 1984.

Joe Biden was smart enough not to run for President in 1984, though he did receive one vote at the 1984 Democratic National Convention.

Walter Mondale would win the Democratic nomination that year, only to be hammered by President Ronald Reagan in the Presidential election.

2. 1988

1988 was Joe Biden's first run for the Democratic nomination, and it resulted in failure.

The race for President was wide open in 1988, as President Reagan was leaving office.

Joe Biden was seen as a strong contender for the Democratic nomination, though his campaign soon went off the rails.

After announcing his candidacy in June of 1987, Biden withdrew from the race just three months later after reports surfaced that he had plagiarized a speech from Neil Kinnock, a politician for the United Kingdom.

Other allegations were made against Joe Biden, claiming that he had exaggerated his academic record amongst other things, and he withdrew from the race a short time later. The situation was embarrassing for Biden, and he wouldn't run again for President for another 20 years.

3. 2008

While Biden's foray into the 1988 Presidential race was embarrassing, his 2008 campaign fizzled with nothing more than a whimper.

After announcing his candidacy on January 7th, 2007, Biden just couldn't gain much traction, as he was overshadowed by the likes of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Biden would stuck his foot in his mouth a few times on the campaign trail, and was punished at the Iowa caucus, where he finished with less than 1% of the vote.

Biden saw the campaign as a lost cause at that point and dropped out of the race.

President Obama saw enough in Joe Biden to name him as his Vice President, and the two served side-by-side for eight years.

4. 2020

After declining to run in 2016, Joe Biden threw his hat into the ring in 2020, as he wanted to do battle against President Donald Trump.

Joe Biden started strong after formally announcing his candidacy, though is campaign lost momentum at the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, as he finished out of the top three in both.

After Bernie Sanders briefly took over as the frontrunner, Joe Biden steamrolled back to the front of the pack.

After winning the South Carolina primary by a mile, many of Biden's opponents dropped out of the race and endorsed him. After "Super Tuesday" went Biden's way, Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race and Biden was sent to square off against President Trump.

Filed under: General Knowledge