Barack Obama was elected the first Black U.S. president
On this day · 4 November 2008
On election night 2008, a first-term senator from Illinois won a decisive Electoral College victory and made American history.
On November 4, 2008, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona to become the first Black person elected president of the United States. It was a decisive win: Obama took 365 electoral votes to McCain’s 173, far above the 270 needed.
Obama, a first-term senator only four years removed from the Illinois statehouse, had built an insurgent campaign around the themes of “hope” and “change,” mobilizing record numbers of young and first-time voters. He drew nearly 53 percent of the popular vote and more than 69 million ballots.
The result carried weight far beyond the tally. A nation that had practiced legal segregation within living memory had chosen a Black man to lead it.
The Democratic ticket prevailed with nearly twice the electoral votes of its opponent.
Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president on January 20, 2009, with Joe Biden as his vice president.
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