Barack Obama was elected president of the United states on the 4th of November 2008. He made history as the first African American to ever hold this office. Obama defeated his main opponent John McCain by winning a total of 365 electrical collage votes to McCain’s 173.
Interestingly, it was also the first election since 1952 that the either the current sitting President or Current sitting Vice President did not run for office.
Although Obama was the first African American president to win an election, he was not the first African American to run for presidential nomination. Previous hopefuls to run for nomination included Shirley Chisolm, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton.
Obama’s running mate for Vice President was Joe Biden; they made history as the first running pair in which neither candidate was a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Biden was the first Roman Catholic to be elected vice president. In 2012 Obama and Biden went on to win a second term. Joe Biden went on to be elected President in his own right in 2020.
Even though Obama is no longer president his legacy lives on. In a Survey by Pew Research Center 44% of people named Obama as the best or second best president of their lifetime ahead of Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.
