Illinois Senate elections of Barack Obama 5, 2002 general election, Democratic Party candidate Obama, running unopposed on the ballot, was re-elected to a four-year term as state senator for the new 13th District with 48,717 votes. Illinois Senate elections of Barack Obama Barack Obama won three Illinois Senate elections. The Illinois Senate career of Barack Obama began in 1997 after his first election in 1996 to a two-year term in the Illinois Senate representing Illinois' 13th Legislative District in Chicago. He was re-elected in 1998 to a four-year term and re-elected again in 2002 to another four-year term. He resigned from the Illinois Senate in 2004
First inauguration of Barack Obama inauguration, as Barack Obama placed his hand on the Bible and recited the presidential oath. Nearly four years earlier, then-Senator Obama had been one of 22 Senators to vote against Roberts during Roberts' Supreme Court nomination; the inauguration marked the first time a Chief Justice administered the oath to a President-elect who had previously voted against the Chief Justice's confirmation. Roberts and Obama made several mistakes as they recited the oath. The proper wording for the oath of office is prescribed in the Constitution: Roberts had practiced for the ceremony carefully. However, a memo noting his planned pauses in the