Reuters
- Joe Biden has been projected to win the 2020 presidential election, defeating President Trump.
- His wife, Dr. Jill Biden, has emerged as one of his most forceful surrogates.
- She has campaigned tirelessly alongside him throughout his 2020 election and has been his anchor throughout his decades-long political career.
- She is a committed educator, who has continued teaching English throughout Joe Biden's tenure as Vice President and plans to keep her job after moving into the White House.
- Scroll down to learn more about First Lady-elect, Jill Biden.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Dr. Jill Biden is the First Lady-elect after her husband, Joe, won the 2020 presidential election.
She has not only campaigned tirelessly alongside him throughout the victorious race but has also supported Joe throughout his decades-long political career.
Though Jill is a passionate supporter of her husband, she is also fiercely independent.
She worked as an English teacher throughout Joe's tenure as Vice President from 2009 to 2017, becoming the first known Second Lady to work full time while serving alongside her husband.
The Bidens, married for 43 years, have endured a series of highs and lows — from his vice presidency to the 2015 death of her stepson Beau Biden from brain cancer.
Here is a look inside the life of First Lady-elect, Jill Biden.
Getty Images
Source: Vogue
While growing up, Jill moved around a lot, eventually settling in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. She spent most of her childhood there and adopted a slight Philly accent as well as a lifelong love for local sports teams.Google Maps
Source: Washington Post
When she was 15, she started her first job as a waitress. "From an early age, I knew I wanted my own money, my own identity, my own career," she told Vogue in 2008.Reuters
Source: Vogue
Four years later, in 1971, Jill married Bill Stevenson, a former college football player whom she met the summer before graduating high school.Steve Liss/The LIFE Images Collection/ Getty Images
Source: Vogue
That year she also started college at the University of Delaware, majoring in English.Jim Young/Reuters
In 1972, she and Stevenson opened the Stone Balloon Tavern and Concert Hall by the University of Delaware. It would go on to become one of the country's most successful college bars.
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Playboy magazine once listed the bar and concert hall as "one of the 100 Top College Bars in America," according to its website
The bar hosted iconic American artists, including Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
Source: Vogue
This wasn't the only job Jill did in her college years. She also modeled for a local agency, but she insists she "wasn't a model."Christina Jamison/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
"I might've done five jobs where you get paid, like, 20 bucks," she told Vogue in 2008. "But I wasn't a model."
By 1975, she and Stevenson had drifted apart and filed for divorce that year. She was in her junior year at the time, and decided to take the year off: "Things were a little too rough, too emotional. But I knew I would finish," she said.Monica Quesada/Reuters
She would go on to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Delaware in 1975, according to the university.
Source: Vogue
Later that year, she was set up on a blind date with Joe Biden by Joe's brother, Frank. When Joe showed up at her front door, 24-year-old Jill recalled thinking: "Thank God it's only one date."Reuters
"The guys I had dated had bell bottoms and clogs. When Joe showed up at my door, I took one look at his perfect suit and his leather loafers and I thought: 'Thank God it's only one date,'" she was quoted as saying in The New York Times.
But when the date was over, she had changed her mind drastically, telling her mother: "Mom, I finally met a gentleman," Vogue reported.
At the time, Joe Biden was a 33-year-old Delaware senator, widowed after a horrific car accident three years prior killed his wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter, Naomi.Bettmann/Getty Images
A few weeks after the 1972 December election, Neilia's station wagon was hit by a tractor-trailer as she pulled out from an intersection.
Joe and Neilia's sons Hunter and Beau, who were sitting in the backseat with their sister Naomi, survived the accident with minor injuries. Naomi didn't.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Despite the fact that Joe Biden was nine years older and had two children, he and Jill had an instant connection and fell in love quickly.Getty Images
Getty Images
Source: Vogue
"By that time, of course, I had fallen in love with the boys, and I really felt that this marriage had to work. Because they had lost their mom, and I couldn't have them lose another mother," Jill told Vogue of the time.Reuters
Source: Vogue
Eventually, she said yes, and they married in an intimate ceremony in New York on June 17, 1977. The couple took the Biden sons on their honeymoon.Getty Images
The entire family was "all marrying each other," Vogue reported, paraphrasing Joe and Jill.
Despite her husband's very public life, Jill was always wary of the spotlight, didn't like politics, and wanted to make sure that she could still focus on her own ambitions.Source: Politico
As Joe built his political career, Jill completed a master's degree in education and worked as a teacher — all while pregnant.Getty Images
Meanwhile, Joe Biden was going to work and commuting from Washington, DC, to Wilmington, Delaware on Amtrak nightly, according to the New York Times.
In 1987, Jill Biden earned a second Master of Arts degree in English from Villanova University, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The couple gave birth to Ashley Blazer Biden on June 8, 1981, and Jill decided to stop working for two years to look after Ashley, Beau, and Hunter.Tim Chong/Reuters
Keith Meyers/AP
Source: Vogue
But this changed in 2004 when President George W. Bush was reelected. Then Jill urged Joe to run for president again because she was "so against" the 2003 Iraq war.Alex Wong/Getty Images
"I literally wore black for a week. I just could not believe that he won, because I felt that things were already so bad. I was so against the Iraq War. And I said to Joe: 'You've got to change this, you have to change this,'" she was quoted as saying in The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, at the age of 55, she earned a doctorate in education under her maiden name — Jill Jacobs — at the University of Delaware in 2007.Getty Images
Source: Los Angeles Times
While Jill rarely campaigned for her husband in previous years, she took on a more public role in his 2008 race, holding a series of events with Michelle Obama.Getty Images
Source: Politico
But she still continued to teach, only joining her husband on the campaign trail on the weekends.Jim Young/Reuters
"My wife, Jill, who you'll meet soon, who's drop-dead gorgeous," Joe Biden told a crowd in Springfield, Illinois, on the day he was announced as Barack Obama's running mate, according to Politico.
"My wife, Jill, she also has a doctorate degree, which is a problem," he added jokingly.
She even continued to teach English at Northern Virginia Community College during Joe's two terms as vice president, becoming the first known Second Lady to work while in the role.AP Photo/Morry Gash
Source: The New York Times
While working as a teacher, she deliberately distanced herself from her famous husband. Some of her students didn't even know she was Joe Biden's wife, calling her only by her preferred name, "Dr. B."Getty Images
While she had pictures of her children and grandchildren at work, she never put one up of her husband.
According to Politico, she also tried to get her accompanying secret service agents to dress so they wouldn't be noticeable.
"My standard line when students ask me if I am married to the VP is to say that I am one of his relatives. That usually quiets them," she once told The New York Times.
Source: USA Today
Meanwhile, she still attended to her duties as Second Lady, including supporting military families, attending the Invictus Games in London, and raising awareness on the value of community colleges.Reuters
Source: Agence France-Presse
But during Joe's vice presidency the Bidens were faced with another tragedy: Beau, Jill's stepson, and Joe's son, died of brain cancer in May 2015.Jason Reed/Reuters
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Reuters
Source: USA Today
Beau's death led Joe to announce that he wasn't going to run for the 2016 presidential election. Jill stood by his side when he made that announcement at the White House in October 2015.Bryan Woolston/Reuters
Reuters
Source: The New York Times
Since then, she has tirelessly campaigned for her husband, even pulling out of her teaching responsibilities temporarily to do so.Jim Urquhart/Reuters
Source: The New York Times
She has taken on a public role as a vocal surrogate for her husband, as well as acted privately as a trusted confidante for him.Patrick T. Fallon/Reuters
Source: The New York Times
"She's like the adviser in chief. Kind of like the relationship [Joe Biden] had with Obama, he'd be the last person in the room — that's Jill", a long-time friend and former senator, Ted Kaufman said of her.Yuri Gripas/Reuters
Source: The New York Times
Sometimes Jill even takes on more commitments than her husband, throwing fundraisers, parades, or even house parties.Mark Makela/Reuters
Source: The New York Times
Her appearance on the campaign trail has also led to some bizarre moments.Reuters/Brian Snyder
Source: The New York Times
At a campaign event in Iowa last November, Joe went off script and nibbled on his wife's finger while she was speaking at an event. She seemed to laugh it off.Getty Images/Joshua Lott
Source: Business Insider
She also jumped up to protect her husband from a protester who stormed the stage at his Super Tuesday victory speech in Los Angeles in March. The moment quickly became a meme, and she was hailed "a hero" online.Source: Business Insider
Throughout the race, the Bidens have demonstrated a united front, and Joe has looked to his wife to keep him going. "The happiest times I've seen him have been when Jill is doing something," Sen. Kaufmann said.Brendan McDermid/Reuters
Source: The New York Times
Jill became First Lady-elect on November 7 after Joe won the 2020 presidential race, beating President Donald Trump. She was by his side when he gave his victory speech in their home state Delaware.Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images
Win McNamee/Getty Images
These are all causes she pursued as the second lady as well.
Source: USA Today
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