If you put all the Democrats who’ve announced they’re running for president into a boxing ring, it would be so crowded there would barely be enough room for any of them to swing a punch.

But there is no doubt which one is the political heavyweight.

Joe Biden brings the status of having been vice president for eight years, but his Washington political career spans five decades.

He was first elected as a senator for Delaware as far back as November 1972, shortly before his 30th birthday. He first ran for the presidency in 1988.

And yet, despite the longest CV in current American politics, and even at the age of 76, he’s not the oldest candidate in the race. Senator Bernie Sanders is a year older.

While both Mr Biden and Mr Sanders have the advantage of name-recognition, their age will be a factor; many Democrats feel it’s time for the party to skip a generation. Hillary Clinton was 69 when she was beaten by Donald Trump, who’s now 72.

Critics say Mr Biden missed his chance when he opted not to run against Mrs Clinton. He had the huge advantage of being a the sitting vice-president, and a popular one too – his close relationship with Barack Obama led to jokes about their “bromance”.

But, at the last moment, he decided not to run for intensely personal reasons. His son Beau died of cancer in 2015. It was the second family tragedy Mr Biden had suffered.

Just weeks after being elected as senator for Delaware, his wife Neilla and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in a car crash. Beau and his other son Hunter were injured but survived.

He managed to overcome bereavement and continue his political career in the 1970s, but the premature death of his son hit him hard.

In a book he wrote after Beau’s death, he revealed he was prone to breaking down in tears when members of the public spoke to him about his loss. “This was no way for a presidential candidate to act in public,” he wrote.

Supporters believe that coping with adversity has made him more humane, and more sympathetic. And yet it’s the prospect of a belligerent Mr Biden going toe-to-toe with President Trump which also excites them.

This is a man who reacted to reports of Mr Trump’s crude comments about women by telling a cheering crowd: “If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.”

Mr Biden later expressed regret for the threat, which had prompted the president to tweet: “Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy. Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault. He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Don’t threaten people Joe!”

If the two were to go head-to-head in the race for the White House, expect even more forthright comments from both men.

Right now, the match-up is in Mr Biden’s favour; every single poll puts him ahead of Mr Trump, and he’s ahead of the crowded field of rival Democrats. But we are still more than nine months away from the first votes being cast in the Democratic primaries, and 18 months away from the presidential election.

Mr Biden knows how unpredictable elections can be. Who could have forecast that his first run for the White House would crumble largely because he plagiarised a speech by the then-leader of the Labour Party Neil Kinnock?

When it was discovered that he had adopted some of Mr Kinnock’s rhetoric without crediting him, reporters began to closely scrutinise other comments and found more inconsistencies.

Compared to recent elections, the 1988 controversy seems minor, but it was enough to force him out of the race. He ran again in 2008, but never came close to matching the appeal of Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton. When the former secured the nomination, he invited Mr Biden to be his running mate, valuing his greater political experience.

There are many pundits who believe Mr Biden has a better chance of beating President Trump than any of his rivals. That’s based almost entirely on the name recognition which comes with having been vice-president.

Prior to being veep, his previous attempts to win the Democratic nomination were abject failures. Mr Biden now rates highly for likeability, electability and an ability to connect with the blue-collar Americans who turned to Mr Trump in 2016, especially in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

But on the downside, his most recent news-making appearance was to apologise after several women complained about his overly-tactile behaviour.

Mr Sanders is currently his biggest rival, and is way ahead of other candidates in fundraising.

Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar have done well to rise to the upper echelons of the race, but are still largely unknown to most Americans.

The burning desire to find a shiny new charismatic candidate has catapulted Pete Buttigieg into the reckoning, even though his political experience doesn’t extend beyond being mayor of South Bend, Indiana. At least Texan Beto O’Rourke has a stint in the House of Representatives and a tight Senate race with Ted Cruz on his CV.

So while Joe Biden isn’t guaranteed to deliver a knockout blow to all of those who’ve thrown their hat in the ring, his experience means he’s probably the Democrat that President Trump most fears.

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