To date, James Buchanan is the only man from Pennsylvania to have been elected president of the United States. Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. aims to be the second.
Though their nominations are more than a century and a half apart, they have a remarkable amount in common. And we believe the 21st-century election of a nominee born in the Keystone State could be just as consequential as the election of the nominee from the 19th century.
Let’s start with the commonalities.
They’re both Democrats, and they both have spent the majority of their lives working in government, for the most part at the federal government till.
Indeed, if Biden, 77, were elected, it would be exactly 50 years since he won his first office, the New Castle County (Delaware) Council, in 1970. No presidential candidate from any major party has been nominated for the first time that many years after first winning elected office since the formation of the modern party system in 1828.