Jill Biden makes presidential case for husband Joe

Jill Biden offered a personal glimpse into her family's struggles and vouched for her husband's ability to lead the nation through adversity during remarks at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night.

The former Second Lady of the United States spoke of the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on schools around the country as she drew on stories of the Biden family home life.

During their decades in public life, both Jill and Joe Biden have faced considerable personal loss. Shortly after getting elected as a senator, in 1972, Biden's first wife and infant daughter were killed in a crash, leaving him to raise his two sons alone. He married Jill about four years later, but the two faced tragedy together when Biden's son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015.

Both speak openly on the campaign trail about the challenges they've experienced, and Mrs. Biden spoke about what it takes to "make a broken family whole": "The same way you make a nation whole. With love and understanding — and with small acts of compassion."

Mrs. Biden delivered her speech from her former classroom at Brandywine High in Wilmington, Delaware.

The speech is Jill Biden's biggest yet and marks a considerable evolution for a woman who is a self-described introvert and initially a reluctant political wife. In her memoir, she writes of giving her first political speech and having no desire to "give any speeches, anytime, anywhere — just the thought of doing so made me so nervous I felt sick."

But after eight years as the vice president's wife, and then giving speeches and appearing at events after her husband left office, Jill Biden has become one of her husband's most prominent surrogates. She has appeared in virtual events in more than 17 cities since May and is one of the campaign's primary surrogates to Latino voters, headlining town halls and holding frequent calls with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Jill Biden married the Democratic presidential nominee in 1977, and helped raise his surviving sons, Beau and Hunter, before giving birth to daughter Ashley in 1981.

As Joe Biden commuted from Delaware to Washington while serving as a senator, Jill Biden built a career as a teacher, ultimately earning two master's degrees and then a doctorate in education from the University of Delaware in 2007.

Along the way, former coworkers say, Jill Biden, 69, became one of her husband's most valuable political advisers, someone whose opinion was paramount in most of his biggest decisions, both political and personal. She was skeptical of his 1988 presidential campaign but pushed him to run again in 2008, according to her memoir.

Jill Biden continued to teach at a community college while her husband was vice president, against the advice of aides at the time.

Indeed, she has said she plans to continue teaching if she becomes first lady.

Aides say she'll continue to advocate for many of the same issues she championed as the vice president's wife if she returns to the White House as first lady. During her eight years in the Obama administration, she focused on military spouses and families, advocated for community colleges and sought to raise awareness around breast cancer prevention