But hobbled by inflation, illegal immigration and his own advancing age, Mr. Biden leaves office as an unpopular one-term president, turning over the Oval Office to a man he considers a fascist and a danger to democracy. He hopes that history will remember him more fondly than his contemporaries do and, as with other presidents, it just well might.

President Joe Biden will cap his half-century political career on Wednesday with a final Oval Office speech, hoping to seal a legacy that has been overshadowed by Democrats' failure to stop Donald Trump from returning to the White House.