Barack Obama Presidential Primary Campaign, 2008

Barack Obama Presidential Primary Campaign, 2008

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 candidacy at the Old State Capitol building, where Abraham Lincoln delivered his "House Divided" speech in 1858. Obama was the main challenger, along with John Edwards, to Democratic Party Front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton for much of 2007. His initial victory in the Iowa caucus helped bring him to national prominence from a crowded field of Democratic challengers, and his campaign began to trade a series of hard-fought state wins with expected frontunner Clinton in January, a trend that continued through Super Tuesday, in which Obama had great success in large rural states and Clinton was nearly as dominant in high-population coastal areas. Obama continued to have remarkable fundraising and electoral success in February, winning all 11 state and territorial-level contests after Super Tuesday and "chipping away" at Clinton's core supporters in key states. Obama won the Vermont primary, however ended up losing Ohio and Rhode Island thus losing six delegates of his lead. Obama then won the Wyoming caucus and Mississippi primary and later lost the Pennsylvania primary.

After Obama won the North Carolina primary and narrowly lost the Indiana primary, superdelegates began to endorse Obama in greater numbers. Despite losing West Virginia and Kentucky by wide margins, Obama's win in Oregon gave him an absolute majority of the pledged delegates, and he maintained that majority after the full delegations of Florida and Michigan were seated at half voting strength by a May 31 Democratic National Committee ruling. After a rush of support for Obama from superdelegates on June 3, the day of the final primary contests of Montana and South Dakota, Obama was estimated to surpass the 2,118 delegates required for the Democratic nomination. On June 7, Clinton formally ended her candidacy and endorsed Obama, making him the party's presumptive nominee. On August 27, the Democratic Party of the United States nominated Barack Obama to run for the office of the President of the United States of America.