Joe Biden

It wasn’t until the former Vice President lost his son Beau to cancer in 2015 that many people first came to appreciate Joe Biden as a leader. A childhood stutterer who was elected to the Senate at age 29 in 1972, then lost his first wife and baby daughter in a car crash just weeks later, the Delaware politician became a living example of perseverance that resonated with Americans across both sides of the aisle. He inspired further admiration when he responded to Beau’s death by taking up the White House’s “cancer moonshot” initiative, which, in its short tenure so far, has focused critical attention on breaking down barriers to research collaboration and data sharing. Biden’s personal mission to cure the disease will be the focus of his career after politics, and he’ll have public goodwill on his side: He left office with his Gallup approval rating at an all-time high of 61%.