Biden Facts

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden debates his Republican rival Sarah Palin Thursday in their sole face-to-face confrontation before the Nov. 4 election.

Following are some biographical details for Biden, a U.S. Senator from the state of Delaware:

Age: 65

Birth date: Nov. 20, 1942

Birthplace: Scranton, Pennsylvania

Education: Bachelor's degree from University of Delaware; law degree from Syracuse University

Wife: Jill Tracy Jacobs

Children: Two sons from first marriage; one daughter from second

Religious affiliation: Catholic

Family: Joe Biden married Neilia Hunter in 1966 while he was in law school. The couple had three children – a daughter and two sons.

Biden was elected in 1972 to his first term in the U.S. Senate. Six weeks later, his wife and infant daughter were killed in a car accident that also left his two sons critically injured. He almost resigned the Senate post but was persuaded not to by the majority leader. Biden took the oath of office at the bedside of one of his sons.

He was a single parent for five years, commuting to and from Washington every day, an hour-and-a-half trip each way, a practice he continues. He met Jill Tracy Jacobs, a teacher, in 1975 and the two married in 1977. They have a daughter. Biden's sons recovered. One is the Delaware attorney general and an attorney in the Army National Guard who has been called up for service in Iraq.

Career: Biden graduated near the bottom of his class from both the University of Delaware and Syracuse University law school. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969 and practiced law for several years.

Elective office: Biden was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and served for two years before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972. He has served in the Senate since that time, being re-elected five times.

Biden is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a senior member of the Judiciary Committee. He is ranked among the most liberal senators by several groups that rate senators' voting records. He opposed the Supreme Court nominations of conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.

During the war in Bosnia, he became one of the strongest advocates for action to protect Bosnian Muslims, from lifting the arms embargo to NATO air strikes to war crimes prosecutions.

As the Bush administration moved toward war with Iraq, he said the United States probably had no choice but to remove Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. But he opposed unilateral action and pressed for a move to war only after exhausting diplomatic options. He opposed President Bush's strategy of boosting troop levels in Iraq in order to reduce violence.

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