Illinois Senate elections of Barack Obama election, Democratic Party candidate Obama was elected state senator for the 13th District with 48,592 votes (82.15%); Harold Washington Party candidate David Whitehead received 7,461 votes (12.61%); and Republican Party candidate Rosette Caldwell Peyton received 3,091 votes (5.22%). The citywide turnout of 63% was the record low for a presidential general election in Chicago and was down from 74.5% in 1992. The 1996 election was the last in Illinois to allow straight-ticket voting. On January 8, 1997, Obama was sworn in for a two-year term as state senator for the 13th District, which was then a T-shaped district that spanned
Barack Obama three presidential debates in September and October 2008. On November 4, Obama won the presidency with 365 electoral votes to 173 received by McCain. Obama won 52.9% of the popular vote to McCain's 45.7%. He became the first African American to be elected president. Obama delivered his victory speech before hundreds of thousands of supporters in Chicago's Grant Park. On April 4, 2011, Obama announced his reelection 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. As the incumbent president he ran virtually