Life of Obama

ndidate and the two engaged in three presidential debates in September and October 2008.[107] On November 4, Obama won the presidency with 365 electoral votes to 173 received by McCain.[108] Obama won 52.9% of the popular vote to McCain's 45.7%.[109] He became the first African American to be elected president.[110] Obama delivered his victory speech before hundreds of thousands of supporters in Chicago's Grant Park.[111]

2012 presidential campaign

Main articles: United States presidential election, 2012 and Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2012

Following the typical TV news voter map color scheme, the Empire State Building lit blue when CNN projected Obama as the winner of the 2012 election; had Romney won it would have been lit red.[112]

On April 4, 2011, Obama announced his re-election campaign for 2012 in a video titled "It Begins with Us" that he posted on his website and filed election papers with the Federal Election Commission.[113][114][115] As the incumbent president he ran virtually unopposed in the Democratic Party presidential primaries,[116] and on April 3, 2012, Obama had secured the 2778 convention delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination.[117]

Mitt Romney and President Obama shake hands in the Oval Office on November 29, 2012, following their first meeting since President Obama's re-election.

At the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, former President Bill Clinton formally nominated Obama and Joe Biden as the Democratic Party candidates for president and vice president in the general election, in which their main opponents were Republicans Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.[118]

On November 6, 2012, Obama won 332 electoral votes, exceeding the 270 required for him to be re-elected as president.[119][120][121] With more than 51% of the popular vote,[122] Obama became the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to twice win the...