Most love stories sound a little different depending on telling it. But when you’re in the public eye as, for example, a top-ranking government official, you learn to get your how-we-met story down to a science with your spouse. In recent decades especially, presidential candidates have used their home life, marriage, and story of how they met their partner as a way to connect the public to their human side and give a sense of what they’re about on a personal level. Over the years, we’ve fallen in love with the love stories behind President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill, Barack and Michelle Obama, or JFK and Jackie Kennedy. And it seems as though a history of bold romantic gestures goes back almost as far as the presidency itself.
When it comes to current President Joe Biden, his love story with Dr. Jill Biden is so well-known in part because the tragedy that preceded it is so well-known: the death. 1-year- before he met Jill. But it’s also well-known because of its larger-than-life, boombox-in-a-window show of devotion: Joe proposed five times before Jill accepted, much like Barack Obama had to prove himself to convince Michelle to go on with him. When they did finally go out, a turned into all day spent together: just like the first date, and too.
Becoming President of the United States is no small task to embark upon with a life partner, and these marriages point to the bonds that made much of American history possible. “Coming home to Nancy was like coming out of the cold into a warm room with a fireplace,” Ronald used to say of Nancy Reagan.
Read on for the best presidential love stories this country has seen.
James Madison & Dolley Payne (m. 1794)
Dolley Payne was 25 when she first caught the eye of future President James Madison in Philadelphia, and he was smitten from the very first look. After having Aaron Burr introduce him to the young widow, Madison fell deeply in love, with Payne’s cousin accounting for his feelings like this in a 1794 letter: “he has Lost his Tongue, at Night he of you & Starts in his Sleep on you to relieve his Flame for he to such an excess that he will be shortly. I have about him with Sparkling Eyes.”
Lyndon B. Johnson & Lady Bird Johnson (m. 1934)
Lyndon B. Johnson spotted Lady Bird on a trip to Texas and asked her to meet him for breakfast the next day, a date she had every intention of skipping until she ran into him that morning. Breakfast turned into a day of driving, a marriage proposal, and a trip the following day to meet his parents, all of which naturally took Taylor by surprise. But Johnson was confident from the start.
John F. Kennedy & Bouvier (m. 1953)
In 1952, Jacqueline Bouvier was working for the Washington Times Herald as a “Camera Girl” when fellow journalist Charles Bartlett invited her over for a life-changing dinner party — to meet future President John F. Kennedy. Though Bouvier was engaged to someone else at the time, there was no denying sparks flew at their early meeting.
“Members of the family knew right away that she was very special to him,” brother Ted Kennedy later said. “He was fascinated by her intelligence: They read together, painted together, enjoyed good conversation together and walks together.”
Ronald Reagan & Nancy Davis (m. 1952)
Before she was first lady, Nancy Davis was an aspiring Hollywood actress who needed a favor from Ronald Reagan. When Davis suspected she had been blacklisted as a suspected communist, she reached out to the President of the Screen Actors Guild for help, who just so happened to be Reagan himself. He agreed to meet her for dinner, and stayed for so long talking that he didn’t get home until 3 a.m.
Joe Biden & Jill Tracy Jacobs (m. 1977)
In 1975, widower Joe Biden was set up on a blind date by his brother with Jill Jacobs (then Jill Stevenson, from a prior marriage). It only took them two years to marry, but Joe was convinced earlier than that, famously proposing to Jill five times before she agreed to marry him. Jill has since said it was her intense connection to Joe’s young sons, Beau and Hunter Biden, that made her take the extra time before committing.
Barack Obama & Michelle Robinson (m. 1992)
Photo : Courtesy Everett Collection.
Barack Obama & Michelle Robinson (m. 1992)
At law firm Austin LLP, Michelle Robinson was assigned to mentor the new summer associate: Barack Obama. A few weeks into the job, Barack had the bright idea that they should go out on a date, but Michelle took some convincing. When she did meet him, she later thought she’d be spending a night with just another “good-looking, smooth-talking guy” — but between a meeting at the Art Institute of Chicago, a screening of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, and some Baskin-Robbins ice cream, she found herself pleasantly surprised to meet her match.
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