Is Joe Biden running for president in 2020?

Is former Vice President Joe Biden planning to run for president in 2020?

Here are the latest updates:  

Update 6:25 a.m. EDT April 25: Former Vice President Joe Biden announced Thursday that he is running for president.

The Delaware Democrat made his candidacy official in an online campaign video Thursday morning.

>> Watch the video here

"The core values of this nation … our standing in the world … our very democracy ... everything that has made America – America – is at stake," Biden tweeted at 6 a.m. Thursday. "That's why today I'm announcing my candidacy for President of the United States."

>> See the tweet here

Biden also unveiled his campaign website. Check it out here.

Update 3:56 a.m. EDT April 24: Former Vice President Joe Biden will announce Thursday that he is running for president, multiple news outlets are reporting.

According to the Washington Post, the Delaware Democrat plans to make his candidacy official in an online campaign video Thursday morning, "a source close to him" said. A fundraiser for Biden, who is originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania, also is scheduled that evening in Philadelphia, Politico reported.

On Monday, Biden, 76, will make an appearance at a Pittsburgh union hall for his first campaign event, NBC News reported.

Update 9:45 a.m. EDT April 19: According to the Associated Press, "Joe Biden is expected to announce he's running for president next week. That's according to three people with knowledge of Biden's plans." Click here to read the story.

Update 11:15 a.m. EDT March 12: An unidentified "senior Democratic lawmaker" has told The Hill that Joe Biden has decided to run for president in 2020. Click here to read the story.

Original story: Former Vice President Joe Biden is ready to enter the 2020 presidential race, according to some news reports.

The news site Axios reported that Biden has already told top Democrats he will jump into what is expected to become a very crowded field of Democrats ready to take on President Donald Trump.

What are the signs for those less politically connected? Biden has spent the past year going after Trump on issues both foreign and domestic, and recently fired a shot across the bow of potential Democratic challengers when he said he considers himself the "most qualified person in the country to be president."

“I’ll be as straight with you as I can,” Biden said at a book signing tour in December. “I think I’m the most qualified person in the country to be president. The issues that we face as a country today are the issues that have been in my wheelhouse, that I’ve worked on my whole life.”

And while his comment can be passed off as bravado from a lifelong politician, polls have supported Biden’s claims, at least when it comes to his popularity.

Biden has consistently been at the top of surveys asking Democratic voters who they would vote for. The Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll had Biden at 32 percent, while a survey from David Binder Research found Biden at 30 percent.

No other potential Democratic candidate the surveys asked about had more than 20 percent in either of those polls.

When it comes to 2020 matchups, Biden polled ahead of Trump in a survey of North Carolina voters for potential 2020 Democratic contenders.

Biden led Trump by 5 points, 49 percent to 44 percent, in the survey conducted by Public Policy Polling that was released on Wednesday.

One big advantage Biden would have in a 2020 run for the White House is decades of public service. He won his Senate seat when he was 29 years old in 1972. He left that Delaware Senate seat in 2008 to serve eight years as President Barack Obama’s vice president.

With decades of public service comes supporters with deep pockets and a name that people recognize.

It also comes with baggage that Biden may find difficult to unload. His treatment of Anita Hill during the 1991 confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas rankles women still and was stirred up once again during the confirmation hearing of Justice Brett Kavanaugh last fall.

Another, inescapable, factor in his decision to run is his age. At 76, is he the one that Democrats who elected a new, younger class of representatives are looking for to lead the party and the country?

If he does run and wins the Democratic nomination to face Trump (who is 72), whoever wins that election will be the oldest U.S. president ever elected.

After decades in the public eye, do you think you know Joe Biden? Here are a few things you may not have known.

• Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on Nov. 20, 1942, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and moved to Wilmington, Delaware, at age 10.
• He has three siblings.
• He attended a series of Catholic schools and excelled at sports.
• He stuttered as a young boy.
• In 1965, he graduated from the University of Delaware and three years later earned a law degree from Syracuse University.
• He married his first wife, Neilia Hunter, in 1966. They had three children – Joseph Robinette "Beau" III, Robert Hunter and Naomi Christina.
• He worked as an attorney in Wilmington before running for and winning a seat on the New Castle County Council in 1970. In 1972, he unseated a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat.
• A month later, in December 1972, Biden's wife and children were Christmas shopping when the car they were riding in was struck by a truck. His wife and daughter were killed in the accident and his sons were badly injured.
• Biden canceled his plans to move to Washington and instead commuted by train from Delaware to work in the Senate. He was sworn in as senator in his sons' hospital room.
• After his wife's death, Biden would eventually meet schoolteacher Jill Jacobs. The two married in 1977 and had one daughter, Ashley.
• Biden won reelection in 1978 and five times after that. He was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and of the Foreign Relations Committee.
• In 1987, he entered the 1988 presidential race. He dropped out three months later amid claims he plagiarized material used in his campaign and made false claims about his academic record.
• Five months later, in February 1988, Biden underwent surgery to repair an aneurysm on the right side of his brain. A few months later he had surgery to repair a second aneurysm on the other side of his brain.
• While in the Senate, he introduced a bill that became the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), crafted a bill that put 100,000 more police officers in communities, and voted to ban assault weapons.
• In 2007, he once again announced he would run for president but dropped out of the race in January 2008. In August 2008, he became then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's running mate. The two were elected on Nov. 4, 2008.
• He was both the first Catholic and the first Delawarean to serve as vice president of the United States.
• The pair were re-elected in 2012.
• In May of 2015, his eldest son, Beau, died of brain cancer. He was 46.
• Later that year, Biden said he would not run for president in 2016, but didn't close the door on a run in 2020.
• He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award the government gives, in his last month in office.
• He left office on Jan. 20, 2017 when Trump is sworn in.
• In February 2017, he and his wife launched the Biden Foundation which champions seven issues: foreign policy; a cancer initiative; community colleges and military families; protecting children; equality; ending violence against women, and strengthening the middle class.
• Biden published "Promise Me Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose," in November 2017.

Cox Media Group