His one-on-one encounters with voters help explain Biden's enduring popularity in polls.

By Natasha Korecki @ Politico.com, Dec. 9

MASON CITY — It happens organically, without prompting: Joe Biden’s event wraps up and they line up to talk to him. A young woman struggling with the demons of domestic violence. A parent grieving a lost child. A daughter carrying a message from her 99-year-old mother. Most are meeting the former vice president for the first time, but it’s as if they’re finally seeing an old friend.

They lean in and talk into his ear. They take his hands or he takes theirs. The former vice president adopts a priest-like persona: Appearing to block out everything around him, he places his hands atop their shoulders, looks them in the eye, then dispenses words of comfort they’ve skipped work or traveled from another state to hear.

“He told me to remember that it’s not my fault,” said Theresa Hanley, 34, crying as she walked away from their exchange. Hanley said she approached Biden to thank him for his work on the issue and to urge him to help strengthen a domestic violence law in Iowa. “It meant the world to me. I wish more people would think that way.” [....]