[17][d] Although he was nearly nine years her senior, she was impressed by his more formal appearance and manners compared to the college men she had known, and after their first date, she told her mother, "Mom, I finally met a gentleman.

[2][28] She was not considered a political person at the time,[40] and during her husband's unsuccessful bid for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, she said she would continue her job of teaching emotionally disabled children even if she became the first lady.

[g] Despite personally opposing the Iraq War, Biden had not wanted her husband to run in the 2004 presidential election, to the point where she interrupted one strategy meeting discussing the possibility by entering in a swimsuit with the word "NO" inscribed on her stomach.

[75][76][77] In September 2011, Biden lent her support to USAID's FWD campaign, a push for awareness surrounding the deadly famine, war, and drought affecting more than 13 million people in the Horn of Africa.

[81] She made her position there as normal as she could, sharing a cubicle with another teacher, holding regular office hours for students, and trying to persuade her accompanying Secret Service agents to dress as unobtrusively as possible.

But she didn't appear to pull rank; when she needed to take time off work — to attend an event with the Obamas or go on an overseas trip with her husband — she requested permission from the college.

[85] The same month, the Bidens' daughter Ashley, a social worker and former staffer at the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth, and Their Families, married Howard Krein.

During her husband's second term, Biden continued to be involved with supporting military personnel, including staging multiple visits to the Center for the Intrepid rehabilitation facility for amputees and attending the inaugural Invictus Games in London.

[94] The former second couple launched the Biden Foundation in February 2017, with the purpose of allowing them to pursue the causes they cared most about, including focuses upon preventing violence against women, his moonshot initiative, and her interests in community colleges and military families.

[30] In June 2017, the couple bought a $2.7 million, off-the-water vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, near Cape Henlopen State Park, where they planned to host members of their extended family.

[102] Then in May 2018, she gave a commencement address at Bishop State Community College in Alabama, telling the graduates that "Maybe like me, life got in the way and it's taken you a lot longer than you expected to get here today. ...

"[103] In February 2019, she spoke to the graduating class of the Newport News Apprentice School, telling them she realized many of them were in complicated life situations with multiple responsibilities, and that "Sometimes your day is a jigsaw puzzle that never seems to get completed. ...

[109] Days later, Biden addressed the matter of women who had accused her husband of physical contact that had made them feel uncomfortable by saying, "I think what you don't realize is how many people approach Joe.

[115] After experiencing a number of victories around the nation, she gained some media attention at the March 3 Super Tuesday primaries during her husband's speech when she physically blocked a protester from getting at him.

"[3] With her husband having become the presumptive Democratic nominee, in June 2020, she published the children's book Joey: The Story of Joe Biden, which portrayed him as having been "brave and adventurous" as a child despite having a stutter he was bullied for.

[126][10] In mid-November 2020, it was announced that her chief of staff as first lady would be attorney and diplomat Julissa Reynoso Pantaleón and that her senior advisor in the role would be campaign staffer Anthony Bernal.

[127] In December 2020, an op-ed piece by writer Joseph Epstein in The Wall Street Journal, which urged the incoming First Lady to drop the "Dr." from her preferred form of address because she is not a medical doctor,[128] was met with a widespread backlash, especially among professional women.

[144][145][146] During her husband's first year in office, Biden was put in charge of the public push for legislation that, as part of the American Families Plan, would provide free tuition to students attending community colleges.

"[148] (After many further negotiations, a significantly reduced bill passed Congress and became law as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, with free tuition for community college one of those provisions that did not make the cut.

[162] In October 2021, Biden visited Virginia to deliver "last-minute stump" speeches for the Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, in his race against Republican challenger and his successor Glenn Youngkin.

[165] In April 2024, The New York Times reported that President Biden told an attendee on a meeting with Muslim community members that the first lady had been urging him to calling for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, lamenting the high civilian death toll.

[180] In May 2022, during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Biden made a trip (without her husband) to Romania and Slovakia, visiting with Ukrainian women and children refugees and asking questions of workers from aid organizations.

[186] At each stop, she engaged in public appearances and diplomatic discussions that emphasized the value that partnership with the United States brought in by addressing a variety of issues within those countries.

[200][201] In the United Arab Emirates, she toured the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi as part of the Biden Cancer Moonshot program and attended the Milken Institute's Middle East and Africa Summit.

[161] The decline has been attributed to Biden being more outwardly political than previous first ladies; to the general increase of partisan polarization in the United States dragging down everyone associated with an unpopular president; and, because of a large number of respondents shifting their views to "no opinion", an artifact of how the CNN poll was conducted.

[216] At her husband's victory speech in Wilmington, Biden wore an Oscar de la Renta dark-blue floral dress designed by Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim.

"[221] When it came time for her husband to decide whether to run to retain his office in the 2024 United States presidential election, she was strongly in favor of him doing so,[40] in large part to keep Trump, the previous occupant of the White House, from returning to it.

[222] She remained protective of the rest of her family as well, and in early June she shuttled between attending the trial of Hunter Biden on gun charges and official appearances as first lady at an 80th anniversary D-Day commemorative ceremony in France.

[223] On June 27, the first presidential debate took place, and Joe Biden's disastrous performance in it led to renewed concerns about his age and fitness for office and to calls by many Democrats for him to drop out of the race.

[224][225][226] Jill Biden immediately rallied to her husband's side, praising him at an after-debate watch party by saying "You answered every question, you knew all the facts," and saying that he would stay in the race.