Joe Biden is running for president in 2020. Here\'s everything we know about the candidate and how he stacks up against the competition.

Who is Joe Biden?

Current job: Candidate for president.

Age: 76

Family: Biden is married to Jill Biden, an educator. Together they have a daughter named Ashley. From Biden's previous marriage to Neilia Hunter, he has a son, Hunter, and daughter, Ashley. While married to Hunter, with whom he also had a one-year-old daughter named Naomi, the two were killed in an automobile accident in 1972. Biden's other son with Hunter, Beau Biden, died in 2015 after suffering from brain cancer.

Hometown: Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Political party: Democratic.

Previous jobs: Vice President of the United States from 2009-2017; US senator from Delaware 1973 to 2009; public speaker; author.

Who is Joe Biden's direct competition for the nomination?

Based on a recurring series of national surveys we conduct, we can figure out who the other candidates competing in Joe Biden's lane are, and who the broader opponents are within the party. We can see which other candidates' voters Biden will have to court to run a successful campaign.

• Biden is well positioned in the race, as many people who would be satisfied with him as nominee are unconvinced about almost all of the other candidates in the race. Typically, we see that fans of one candidate often like another candidate in the race more than your typical Democrat, generally because those two candidates share an ideology, identity, or geography. Overall, this isn't the case with Biden.

• half of people who would be satisfied with Biden as nominee would also be satisfied with Sanders as nominee. This may be read as either a credit to their perceived electability, or merely a note on how early it is in this race.

INSIDER has been conducting a recurring poll through SurveyMonkey Audience on a national sample to find out how different candidate's constituencies overlap. We ask people whether they are familiar with a candidate, whether they would be satisfied or unsatisfied with that candidate as nominee, and sometimes we also ask whether they think that person would win or lose in a general election against President Donald Trump.

Read more about how we're polling this here.

What are Joe Biden's political positions?

• On healthcare:
  • Biden was vice president during the crucial negotiations that produced the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare.
  • While many candidates have embraced new healthcare plans like "Medicare for all" and public option buy-ins, Biden could stick with the ACA as it was originally intended, or modernize it to adjust to the many ways in which the law has been undermined and broken apart through court decisions and various pieces of Republican-led legislation.
• On immigration:
• On climate change:
• On campaign finance:
  • "Campaign finance reform is certainly a necessary part of the solution, but so too is disclosure of beneficial ownership and greater transparency in real estate transactions," he wrote. "As matters of national security, these are issues that should be of interest to both Democrats and Republicans who want to reduce our vulnerability to foreign corrupt influence."
• On abortion:
  • Biden is a practicing Catholic, but maintains that access to abortion should be legal.
  • In regard to late-term abortions, Biden has consistently been against it.
  • Biden has also maintained support for the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from providing for abortions.
• On LGBTQ rights:
• On education:
  • Biden supports free college educations, marking a total of 16 years on the taxpayer dime.
  • He has also been a supporter of universal kindergarten and pre-K.
• On guns:
  • Biden wants universal background checks, including on secondary, peer-to-peer sales.
  • In 2012, he was appointed to head the Gun Violence Task Force in the wake of the Sandy Hook attack. The group put forth new regulations on magazine size limits, stricter penalties for trafficking firearms, and new tools to prosecute gun-related crimes. These proposed reforms failed to become law.
  • Biden has said as recently as 2017 that rifles like the AR-15 should be "taken off the streets" but has not gone into specifics about what that would look like, whether in the form of bans on future sales or through confiscatory programs like mandatory buybacks.
• On criminal justice reform:
• On trade:
• On foreign policy:
  
• On taxes:
  • Biden wants higher taxes on wealthy Americans' in key areas like passive income.
  • He has also argued for boosting tax relief for middle class families, including expansions of the Child Tax Credit.

What are Joe Biden's political successes?

• Biden served as chairman of two influential committees during his career in the Senate, including Judiciary and Foreign Relations.
• He Introduced the Violence Against Women Act, which President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1994.
• He was elected vice president twice, in 2008 and 2012.

Could Joe Biden beat President Trump?

Referring back to INSIDER's recurring poll, Joe Biden overall is believed to be the strongest candidate in a general election against Donald Trump by Democrats. For most candidates, a majority of respondents are unsure of how the person would fare in the general, but not Biden. Among those who said they were probably Democratic primary voters, about 70% said they thought Biden would win, which is roughly double the overall average for the Democrats we asked about. Zooming out to all respondents, not just Democrats, a majority (55%) thought Biden would beat Trump in the general and 9% thought he'd lose, with the remainder not sure.

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