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 religion conspiracy theories Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories Allegations that Barack Obama secretly practices Islam, or that he is the antichrist of Christian eschatology, have been suggested since he campaigned for the U.S. Senate in 2004 and proliferated after his election as President of the U.S. in 2008. As with conspiracy theories surrounding his citizenship status, the claims are promoted by various fringe theorists and political opponents, with American bloggers and conservative talk radio hosts particularly promoting the theories. Belief in these claims in the public sphere endured and, in some cases, even expanded during Obama's presidency according to the Pew Research Center,