Barack Obama 2008 presidential primary campaign and urged supporters to back Obama. Barack Obama 2008 presidential primary campaign On February 10, 2007, Barack Obama, then junior United States Senator from Illinois, announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States in Springfield, Illinois. On June 3, 2008, he secured enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for the 2008 presidential election. He was the first African-American in American History to be nominated by a major party. On November 4, 2008, Obama won the presidential election to become the 44th President of the United States, succeeding George W. Bush. Obama announced his
Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories "Barry" rather than "Barack"; and that Barack Obama Sr. was not his biological father, as well as the rumor that Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen. In August 2008, Philip J. Berg, a former member of the Democratic State Committee of Pennsylvania, brought an unsuccessful lawsuit against Obama, which alleged "that Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya." In October 2008, an NPR article referred to "Kenyan-born Sen. Barack Obama." Also that month, anonymous e-mails circulated claiming that the Associated Press (AP) had reported Obama was "Kenyan-Born". The claims were based on an AP story that had appeared five years