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(WASHINGTON) — As President Joe Biden bids a bittersweet farewell to the Democratic National Convention on Monday night, he will be introduced by one of his closest supporters: his youngest daughter, Ashley.
Although she mostly stayed out of the spotlight compared to her siblings and mother, she helped represent her father’s interests and advocate for him since she was a child.
Ashley Biden, 43, was born in June 1981, the only child of then-Delaware senator and his second wife, Jill Biden. Ashley’s older half-brothers Beau and Hunter quickly developed a strong bond with her, her mother told Delaware Today magazine in 2018.
“Her brothers took care of her. And she always looked up to them. Wherever they went, she wanted to come with them and they took her,” she told the magazine.
From a young age, Ashley Biden was an animal rights advocate, speaking to her father about the problems faced by dolphins entangled in tuna nets. Then-Senator Biden introduced the Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Act in 1990, which required tuna producers to label their products as dolphin-free, and he worked with then-California Democratic Rep. Barbara Boxer to help pass the law.
She graduated from Tulane University with a degree in cultural anthropology in 2003 and worked as a social worker in Philadelphia and at the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families.
She earned a master’s degree from the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania in 2010. Two years later, she married physician Dr. Howard Krein.
Ashley Biden was frequently seen with her father on the 2008 campaign trail, and after his election she continued to travel with him to major events in Washington, DC, and around the world. These trips included a private audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican in 2016.
In 2012, she joined the Delaware Center for Justice, working on programs to combat gun violence and youth gang activity, and was later promoted to executive director of the nonprofit organization.
She left her position at the nonprofit in 2019 to support her father’s presidential campaign. Throughout the campaign season, Ashley Biden visited several stops and introduced voters to her father’s work and policies.
She was also active on social media, urging voters to support her father.
At this time, Ashley Biden also became a victim of identity theft by two Florida residents.
According to federal prosecutors, Aimee Harris and Robert Kurlander stole a diary she had left behind at one of her previous residences in September 2020 and then sold it to the right-wing activist group Project Veritas.
Harris and Kurlander pleaded guilty in August 2022 to “conspiracy to transport stolen property interstate, which involved the theft of personal items belonging to an immediate family member of a then-former government official who was running for national political office,” according to the Justice Department.
Harris was sentenced to one month in prison in April, followed by three years of probation. Kurlander’s verdict is expected to be announced in the fall. Ashley Biden did not attend the sentencing hearing “because it would only increase my pain,” she wrote in a letter to the judge.
“The purpose of the theft, I suppose, was to spread grotesque lies by distorting my stream of consciousness,” she said.
In a letter opened after the verdict, she asked the judge to sentence Harris to prison.
“My goal, Your Honor, in imposing a prison sentence is to ensure that no other woman is ever victimized and shamed like this again. The despair I have often felt will never truly go away,” she wrote. “But I ask Your Honor to hold Ms. Harris accountable so that she will think twice before doing it to someone else.”
Even after her father was elected to the White House, Ashley Biden remained by her family’s side and accompanied them on several trips, including a visit to France in June to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
When the president delivered his speech announcing that he would not seek re-election last month, Ashley Biden was among the family members in the Oval Office and was seen tearfully hugging her father after the speech ended.
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