United States (US) President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump face off Thursday in the first televised debate of the 2024 US election.
Polling neck and neck ahead of the 5 November vote, the two attempt to woo any Americans still fine-tuning their decision.
Here are some of the major biographical details to know about Biden, a Democrat and Washington veteran, and Trump, a Republican whose supporters remain wildly devoted despite his multiple criminal charges and the first felony conviction against a former president.
Pro-abortion Catholic
Biden is no stranger to Washington. The 81-year-old longtime politician served as vice president under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017.
Before that, he spent 36 years in the Senate. He was first elected by Delaware voters at age 29, making him one of the youngest senators ever.
Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1942 and is the eldest of four children. The Democrat often alludes to his Irish-American, middle-class upbringing.
His father worked a number of different jobs, and while his family was not poor, they did experience financial setbacks.
On the religion front, Biden is a devout Catholic who attends mass regularly, but he nonetheless supports abortion rights.
A family man, Biden has been quick to proclaim his love and support for his son Hunter, who was recently convicted on charges stemming from his purchase of a handgun while addicted to crack cocaine.
His own life has been marked by multiple sorrows. He lost his first wife Neilia and their young daughter Naomi in a car accident in 1972. Hunter along with Biden’s other son Beau were also injured in that accident. Beau then died of cancer in 2015.
Biden has been married to First Lady Jill Biden since 1977. In addition to raising Beau and Hunter, the couple has a daughter, Ashley.
No self-made billionaire
The bombastic 78-year-old billionaire was a political novice when he successfully ran for president in 2016 against former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
Pugnacious, angry and a populist, Trump stunned the world when he was elected president that year.
Worshipped by supporters, he is considered by detractors to be a danger to American democracy and to the country’s traditional international alliances.
Trump was born in 1946 to a wealthy New York family. Contrary to legend, he is not a self-made man, but rather followed in the footsteps of his father, who built a family empire constructing buildings in the area.
Trump was handed the reins to the family business in the 1970s, and later became a fixture in US households via his reality TV show “The Apprentice,” which first aired in 2004.
Trump’s finances have been the subject of much speculation over the years. However a judge ruled earlier this year that Trump and his company had unlawfully inflated his wealth and manipulated the value of properties to obtain favorable bank loans or insurance terms.
