Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign

Biden, the vice president of the United States from 2009 to 2017 and previously a U.S. senator from Delaware from 1973 to 2009, had been the subject of widespread speculation as a potential 2020 candidate after declining to be a candidate in 2016.^[12] His 2020 campaign positions included codifying Roe v. Wade into statute, creating a public option for health insurance, decriminalizing recreational cannabis, passing the Equality Act, providing tuition-free community college, and passing a $1.7 trillion climate plan embracing the framework of the Green New Deal. Biden supported regulation of fracking as opposed to a complete ban on the practice.


Biden entered the race with very high name recognition. From his campaign announcement up to the start of the elections, he was generally regarded as the Democratic front-runner. He led most national polls through 2019, but did not rank as one of the top three candidates in either the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary. After underperforming expectations in those contests, he suffered a decline in his polling and lost his frontrunner status to Bernie Sanders. Biden started regaining ground after winning second place in the Nevada caucuses and, on February 29, 2020, he won a landslide victory in the South Carolina Democratic primary, which reinvigorated his campaign. In March, ten of Biden's former competitors endorsed him, bringing the total number of such endorsements to twelve. Biden earned enough delegates on Super Tuesday to pull ahead of Sanders. On April 8, after Sanders suspended his campaign, Biden became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.


In June, Biden reached the required number of delegates to become the nominee. On August 11, Biden announced that U.S. Senator Harris would be his vice presidential running mate. On August 18 and 19, Biden and Harris were officially nominated at the Democratic National Convention. For 2020 election, national opinion polls conducted generally showed Biden leading Trump in favorability. On Election Day, the Biden-Harris ticket defeated the Trump-Pence ticket. Biden and Harris won the popular vote, and won the electoral vote by a margin of 306–232. Biden and Harris were sworn in on January 20, 2021.

Questions about inappropriate physical contact[edit]

Biden has been accused several times of inappropriate non-sexual contact, such as embracing, kissing, and other forms of physical contact.^[183][184] He has described himself as a "tactile politician" and admitted this behavior has caused trouble for him in the past.^[185] By 2015, a series of swearings-in and other events at which Biden had placed his hands on people and talked closely to them, attracted attention both in the press and on social media.^{[186][187][188]} Various people defended Biden, including a senator who issued a statement,^[189] as well as Stephanie Carter, a woman whose photograph with Biden had gone viral, who described the photo as "misleadingly extracted from what was a longer moment between close friends".^[190]


In March 2019, former Nevada assemblywoman Lucy Flores alleged that Biden had touched her without her consent at a 2014 campaign rally in Las Vegas. In an op-ed, Flores wrote that Biden had walked up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, smelled her hair, and kissed the back of her head, adding that the way he touched her was "an intimate way reserved for close friends, family, or romantic partners—and I felt powerless to do anything about it."^[191] Biden's spokesman said Biden did not recall the behavior described.^[192] Two days later, Amy Lappos, a former congressional aide to Jim Himes, said Biden touched her in a non-sexual but inappropriate way by holding her head to rub noses with her at a political fundraiser in Greenwich in 2009.^[193] The next day, two more women came forward with allegations of unwanted touching claiming that he touched a woman's leg during a meeting, and that he placed his hand on a woman's back during a photo.^[194][195]


In early April 2019, three women told The Washington Post Biden had touched them in ways that made them feel uncomfortable.^[196] Also in April 2019, former Biden staffer Tara Reade said she had felt uncomfortable on several occasions when Biden touched her on her shoulder and neck during her employment in his Senate office in 1993.^[197] In March 2020, Reade accused him of a 1993 sexual assault.^[198] There were inconsistencies between Reade's 2019 and 2020 allegations.^[199] Biden and his campaign vehemently denied the allegation.^[200][201] The New York Times investigated and "found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden".^[198]


Biden apologized for not understanding how people would react to his actions, but said his intentions were honorable and that he would be more "mindful of people's personal space". He went on to say he was not sorry for anything he had ever done, which led critics to accuse him of sending a mixed message.^[202] Arwa Mahdawi of The Guardian said it was "frustrating to see conservatives... weaponize the accusations against Biden", but that it was "also frustrating to see so many liberals turn a blind eye".^[203]