What Americans Don’t Know About Joe Biden

He’s old. He worked with Barack Obama. He’s generally seen as a decent guy.

If you know more than that about Joe Biden, you know more than many voters.

Growing up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, or having to move because his father lost his job? Writing the Violence Against Women Act? The tragedies he’s lived through, his years as a single father, how he rode the train back to Delaware each night when he was a senator? Even his supposed vulnerabilities, like helping to write the 1994 crime bill, running the Anita Hill hearings, protecting Delaware’s financial industry, or blundering on foreign policy?

Many Americans don’t know any of that, according to data from focus groups and polls conducted by Biden allies.

For the past year, Biden’s been repeating that people know him. “The good news is the bad news. The good news is that people know me,” is his line. “And they know me warts and all,” he added on The Daily Show a few weeks ago. “The bad news is, they know me. [President Donald Trump] is not going to be able to make things stick that aren’t already real weaknesses on my part.”