Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign nominated on a major party ticket. On November 4, 2008, Obama defeated the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, making him the President-elect and the first African American elected President. He was the third sitting U.S. Senator, after Warren G. Harding and John F. Kennedy, to be elected president. Upon the vote of the Electoral College on December 15, 2008, and the subsequent certification thereof by a Joint Session of the United States Congress on January 8, 2009, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States and Joe Biden Vice President of the United States, with 365 of
1944 Democratic Party vice presidential candidate selection Dewey and his running mate John W. Bricker. On January 20, 1945, Truman was sworn in as Vice President of the United States. He was destined to hold the job for just 82 days. On April 12, 1945, he succeeded to the Presidency on Franklin D. Roosevelt's death. The events of the Chicago convention were dramatized in the second episode of the Showtime documentary series "The Untold History of the United States", which looks at how close Henry Wallace came to the US Presidency. 1944 Democratic Party vice presidential candidate selection The Democratic Party's 1944 nomination for Vice President of