Barack Obama

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Barack Obama

Official portrait, 2012

44th President of the United States

In office

January 20, 2009 – January 20, 2017

Vice President Joe Biden

Preceded by George W. Bush

Succeeded by Donald Trump

United States Senator

from Illinois

In office

January 3, 2005 – November 16, 2008

Preceded by Peter Fitzgerald

Succeeded by Roland Burris

Member of the Illinois Senate

from the 13th district

In office

January 8, 1997 – November 4, 2004

Preceded by Alice Palmer

Succeeded by Kwame Raoul

Personal details

Born Barack Hussein Obama II

August 4, 1961 (age 59)

Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.

Political party Democratic

Michelle Robinson
Spouse(s)
 

(m. 1992)

 Malia
Children
 Sasha

Parents  Barack Obama Sr.

 Ann Dunham

Relatives Family of Barack Obama

Residence Kalorama (Washington, D.C.)

Education Punahou School

Alma mater  Columbia University (BA)

 Harvard University (JD)

Occupation  Politician

 lawyer
  author

Awards List of honors and awards

Signature

Website  Official website

 Obama Foundation

 White House Archives

This article is part of

a series about
Barack Obama

 Political positions
 Electoral history

 Early life and career

 Family
 Public image
 Honors

Pre-presidency

 Illinois State Senator

 2004 DNC keynote address
 U.S. Senator from Illinois 
o sponsored bills

44th President of the United States

 Presidency 
o timeline

Policies

 Economy
 Energy
 Foreign policy 
o Europe
o East Asia
o Middle East
o South Asia
o Obama Doctrine
 o foreign trips
 Pardons
 Social
 Space

Appointments

 Cabinet
 Judges

First term

 Campaign 
o 2008 general election
o primaries
 Transition
 First inauguration
 First 100 days
 Recovery Act
 Russia nuclear treaty
 Affordable Care Act
 Dodd–Frank
 Iraq withdrawal
 Killing of Osama bin Laden
 Libya intervention
 Afghanistan withdrawal
 Benghazi attack
 Timeline 
o '09
o '10
o '11
o '12

Second term

 Reelection campaign
o 2012 general election
o reactions
 Second inauguration
 Anti-ISIL campaign 
o Iraq
o Syria
 Iran deal
  Cuban thaw
 Sanctions against Russia
 Selma 50th anniversary speech
 Obergefell v. Hodges
 Paris Agreement
 Kunduz hospital airstrike
 Failed nomination of Merrick Garland
 Timeline 
o '13
o '14
o '15
o '16–'17

Post-presidency

 Planned presidential library

 Obama Foundation
 One America Appeal

 Dreams from My Father

 The Audacity of Hope
 A Promised Land
 Nobel Peace Prize

 v
 t
 e

Barack Hussein Obama II (/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/ ( listen) bə-RAHK hoo-

SAYN oh-BAH-mə;[1] born August 4, 1961) is an American politician and attorney who
served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of
the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the United
States. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and
as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004.
Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. After graduating from Columbia University in
1983, he worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988, he enrolled
in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law
Review. After graduating, he became a civil rights attorney and an academic,
teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to
2004. Turning to elective politics, he represented the 13th district in the Illinois
Senate from 1997 until 2004, when he ran for the U.S. Senate. Obama received
national attention in 2004 with his March Senate primary win, his well-received
July Democratic National Convention keynote address, and his landslide November
election to the Senate. In 2008, he was nominated by the Democratic Party for
president a year after beginning his campaign, and after a close primary
campaign against Hillary Clinton. Obama was elected
over Republican nominee John McCain in the general election and
was inaugurated alongside his running mate, Joe Biden, on January 20, 2009. Nine
months later, he was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Obama signed many landmark bills into law during his first two years in office. The
main reforms that were passed include the Affordable Care Act (commonly referred
to as ACA or "Obamacare"), although without a public health insurance option,
the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and the Don't
Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
of 2009 and Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation
Act of 2010 served as economic stimuli amidst the Great Recession. After a lengthy
debate over the national debt limit, he signed the Budget Control and the American
Taxpayer Relief Acts. In foreign policy, he increased U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan,
reduced nuclear weapons with the United States–Russia New START treaty,
and ended military involvement in the Iraq War. He ordered military involvement in
Libya for the implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1973,
contributing to the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. He also ordered the military
operation that resulted in the killing of Osama bin Laden.
After winning re-election by defeating Republican opponent Mitt Romney, Obama
was sworn in for a second term in 2013. During this term, he promoted inclusion
for LGBT Americans. His administration filed briefs that urged the Supreme Court to
strike down same-sex marriage bans as unconstitutional (United States v.
Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges); same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide in
2015 after the Court ruled so in Obergefell. He advocated for gun control in response
to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, indicating support for a ban
on assault weapons, and issued wide-ranging executive actions concerning global
warming and immigration. In foreign policy, he ordered successful military
interventions in Iraq and Syria in response to gains made by ISIL after the 2011
withdrawal from Iraq, continued the process of ending U.S. combat operations in
Afghanistan in 2016, promoted discussions that led to the 2015 Paris Agreement on
global climate change, initiated sanctions against Russia following the invasion in
Ukraine and again after interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, brokered the JCPOA
nuclear deal with Iran, and normalized U.S. relations with Cuba. Obama
nominated three justices to the Supreme Court: Sonia Sotomayor and Elena
Kagan were confirmed as justices, while Merrick Garland faced
partisan obstruction from the Republican-led Senate led by Mitch McConnell, which
never held hearings or a vote on the nomination. Obama left office in January 2017
and continues to reside in Washington, D.C.[2][3]
During Obama's terms in office, the United States' reputation abroad, as well as the
American economy, significantly improved.[4] Obama's presidency has generally been
regarded favorably, and evaluations of his presidency among historians, political
scientists, and the general public frequently place him among the upper tier of
American presidents.
 Contents

 1Early life and career

o 1.1Education
o 1.2Family and personal life
 1.2.1Religious views
o 1.3Law career
 1.3.1Community organizer and Harvard Law School
 1.3.2University of Chicago Law School and civil rights attorney
o 1.4Legislative career
 1.4.1Illinois Senate (1997–2004)
 1.4.22004 U.S. Senate campaign
 1.4.3U.S. Senate (2005–2008)
 2Presidential campaigns
o 2.12008
o 2.22012
 3Presidency (2009–2017)
o 3.1First 100 days
o 3.2Domestic policy
 3.2.1LGBT rights
 3.2.2White House advisory and oversight groups
 3.2.3Economic policy
 3.2.4Environmental policy
 3.2.5Health care reform
 3.2.6Energy policy
 3.2.7Gun control
 3.2.82010 midterm elections
 3.2.9Cybersecurity and Internet policy
 3.2.10Government mass surveillance
o 3.3Foreign policy
 3.3.1War in Iraq
 3.3.2War in Afghanistan
 3.3.3Israel
 3.3.4Libya
 3.3.5Syrian Civil War
 3.3.6Death of Osama bin Laden
 3.3.7Iran nuclear talks
 3.3.8Relations with Cuba
 3.3.9Africa
 3.3.10Hiroshima speech
 3.3.11Russia
o 3.4Cultural and political image
 4Post-presidency (2017–present)
 5Legacy
o 5.1Presidential library
 6Bibliography
o 6.1Books
o 6.2Audiobooks
o 6.3Articles
 7See also
o 7.1Politics
 o 7.2Other
o 7.3Lists
 8References
o 8.1Works cited
 9Further reading
 10External links
o 10.1Official
o 10.2Other

Early life and career

Main article: Early life and career of Barack Obama

Stanley Armour Dunham, Ann Dunham, Maya Soetoro and Barack Obama, (L to R) mid-1970s in Honolulu

Obama was born on August 4, 1961,[5] at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and
Children in Honolulu, Hawaii.[6][7][8] He is the only president born outside the contiguous
48 states.[9] He was born to an American mother of European descent and an African
father. His mother, Ann Dunham (1942–1995), was born in Wichita, Kansas; she
was mostly of English descent,[10] with some German, Irish, Scottish,[11][12][13][14][15] Swiss,
and Welsh ancestry.[16] In July 2012, Ancestry.com found a strong likelihood that
Dunham was descended from John Punch, an enslaved African man who lived in
the Colony of Virginia during the seventeenth century.[17][18] Obama's father, Barack
Obama Sr. (1936–1982),[19] was a married[20][21][22] Luo Kenyan from Nyang'oma Kogelo.
[20][23]
 Obama's parents met in 1960 in a Russian language class at the University of
Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was a foreign student on a scholarship. [24][25] The
couple married in Wailuku, Hawaii, on February 2, 1961, six months before Obama
was born.[26][27]
In late August 1961, a few weeks after he was born, Barack and his mother moved
to the University of Washington in Seattle, where they lived for a year. During that
time, the elder Obama completed his undergraduate degree in economics in Hawaii,
graduating in June 1962. He left to attend graduate school on a scholarship
at Harvard University, where he earned an M.A. in economics. Obama's parents
divorced in March 1964.[28] Obama Sr. returned to Kenya in 1964, where he married
for a third time and worked for the Kenyan government as the Senior Economic
Analyst in the Ministry of Finance.[29] He visited his son in Hawaii only once, at
Christmas 1971,[30] before he was killed in an automobile accident in 1982, when
Obama was 21 years old.[31] Recalling his early childhood, Obama said, "That my
father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my
mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind." [25] He described his struggles as
a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage. [32]
In 1963, Dunham met Lolo Soetoro at the University of Hawaii; he was
an Indonesian East–West Center graduate student in geography. The couple
married on Molokai on March 15, 1965.[33] After two one-year extensions of his J-1
visa, Lolo returned to Indonesia in 1966. His wife and stepson followed sixteen
months later in 1967. The family initially lived in the Menteng Dalam neighborhood in
the Tebet sub district of south Jakarta. From 1970, they lived in a wealthier
neighborhood in the Menteng sub district of central Jakarta.[34]
Education

Barack Obama's school record in St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Elementary School. Obama was enlisted as
Barry Soetoro in the school (no. 1) and was wrongly acknowledged as a Muslim (no. 4). [35]

When he was six years old, Obama and his mother moved to Indonesia to join his
step-father. From age six to ten, he attended local Indonesian-
language schools: Sekolah Dasar Katolik Santo Fransiskus Asisi (St. Francis of
Assisi Catholic Elementary School) for two years and Sekolah Dasar Negeri
Menteng 01 (State Elementary School Menteng 01) for one and a half years,
supplemented by English-language Calvert School homeschooling by his mother.[36]
[37]
 As a result of his four years in Jakarta, he was able to speak Indonesian fluently as
a child.[38][39][40] During his time in Indonesia, Obama's stepfather taught him to be
resilient and gave him "a pretty hardheaded assessment of how the world works". [41]
In 1971, Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal
grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham. He attended Punahou School—a
private college preparatory school—with the aid of a scholarship from fifth grade until
he graduated from high school in 1979.[42] In his youth, Obama went by the nickname
"Barry".[43] Obama lived with his mother and half-sister, Maya Soetoro, in Hawaii for
three years from 1972 to 1975 while his mother was a graduate student
in anthropology at the University of Hawaii.[44] Obama chose to stay in Hawaii with his
grandparents for high school at Punahou when his mother and half-sister returned to
Indonesia in 1975, so his mother could begin anthropology field work. [45] His mother
spent most of the next two decades in Indonesia, divorcing Lolo in 1980 and earning
a PhD degree in 1992, before dying in 1995 in Hawaii following unsuccessful
treatment for ovarian and uterine cancer.[46]
Obama later reflected on his years in Honolulu and wrote: "The opportunity that
Hawaii offered—to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect—
became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most
dear."[47] Obama has also written and talked about using alcohol, marijuana,
and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my
mind".[48] Obama was also a member of the "choom gang", a self-named group of
friends who spent time together and occasionally smoked marijuana. [49][50]
After graduating from high school in 1979, Obama moved to Los Angeles to
attend Occidental College on a full scholarship. In February 1981, Obama made his
first public speech, calling for Occidental to participate in the disinvestment from
South Africa in response to that nation's policy of apartheid.[51] In mid-1981, Obama
traveled to Indonesia to visit his mother and half-sister Maya, and visited the families
of college friends in Pakistan and India for three weeks.[51] Later in 1981,
he transferred to Columbia University in New York City as a junior, where he
majored in political science with a specialty in international relations[52] and in English
literature[53] and lived off-campus on West 109th Street. [54] He graduated with
a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1983 and a 3.7 GPA. After graduating, Obama worked
for about a year at the Business International Corporation, where he was a financial
researcher and writer,[55][56] then as a project coordinator for the New York Public
Interest Research Group on the City College of New York campus for three months
in 1985.[57][58][59]
Family and personal life
Main article: Family of Barack Obama
In a 2006 interview, Obama highlighted the diversity of his extended family: "It's like
a little mini-United Nations," he said. "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and
I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher."[60] Obama has a half-sister with
whom he was raised (Maya Soetoro-Ng) and seven other half-siblings from his
Kenyan father's family—six of them living. [61] Obama's mother was survived by her
Kansas-born mother, Madelyn Dunham,[62] until her death on November 2, 2008,
[63]
 two days before his election to the Presidency. Obama also has roots in Ireland;
he met with his Irish cousins in Moneygall in May 2011.[64] In Dreams from My Father,
Obama ties his mother's family history to possible Native American ancestors and
distant relatives of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of
America during the American Civil War. He also shares distant ancestors in common
with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, among others.[65][66][67]
Obama lived with anthropologist Sheila Miyoshi Jager while he was a community
organizer in Chicago in the 1980s.[68] He proposed to her twice, but both Jager and
her parents turned him down.[68][69] The relationship was not made public until May
2017, several months after his presidency had ended. [69]

Obama poses in the Green Room of the White House with wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia,
2009

In June 1989, Obama met Michelle Robinson when he was employed as a summer

associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin.[70] Robinson was assigned for
three months as Obama's adviser at the firm, and she joined him at several group
social functions but declined his initial requests to date. [71] They began dating later
that summer, became engaged in 1991, and were married on October 3, 1992.
[72]
 After suffering a miscarriage, Michelle underwent in vitro fertilization to conceive
their children.[73] The couple's first daughter, Malia Ann, was born in 1998, [74] followed
by a second daughter, Natasha ("Sasha"), in 2001. [75] The Obama daughters
attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. When they moved to
Washington, D.C., in January 2009, the girls started at the Sidwell Friends School.
[76]
 The Obamas had two Portuguese Water Dogs; the first, a male named Bo, was a
gift from Senator Ted Kennedy.[77] In 2013, Bo was joined by Sunny, a female.[78] Bo
died of cancer on May 8, 2021.[79]

Obama takes a left-handed jump shot during a pickup game on the White House basketball court, 2009

Obama is a supporter of the Chicago White Sox, and he threw out the first pitch at
the 2005 ALCS when he was still a senator.[80] In 2009, he threw out the ceremonial
first pitch at the All-Star Game while wearing a White Sox jacket.[81] He is also
primarily a Chicago Bears football fan in the NFL, but in his childhood and
adolescence was a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and rooted for them ahead of their
victory in Super Bowl XLIII 12 days after he took office as president.[82] In 2011,
Obama invited the 1985 Chicago Bears to the White House; the team had not visited
the White House after their Super Bowl win in 1986 due to the Space Shuttle
Challenger disaster.[83] He plays basketball, a sport he participated in as a member of
his high school's varsity team,[84] and he is left-handed.[85]
In 2005, the Obama family applied the proceeds of a book deal and moved from
a Hyde Park, Chicago condominium to a $1.6 million house (equivalent to
$2.1 million in 2020) in neighboring Kenwood, Chicago.[86] The purchase of an
adjacent lot—and sale of part of it to Obama by the wife of developer, campaign
donor and friend Tony Rezko—attracted media attention because of Rezko's
subsequent indictment and conviction on political corruption charges that were
unrelated to Obama.[87]
In December 2007, Money Magazine estimated Obama's net worth at $1.3 million
(equivalent to $1.6 million in 2020) .[88] Their 2009 tax return showed a household
income of $5.5 million—up from about $4.2 million in 2007 and $1.6 million in 2005—
mostly from sales of his books.[89][90] On his 2010 income of $1.7 million, he gave 14
percent to non-profit organizations, including $131,000 to Fisher House Foundation,
a charity assisting wounded veterans' families, allowing them to reside near where
the veteran is receiving medical treatments. [91][92] Per his 2012 financial disclosure,
Obama may be worth as much as $10 million.[93]
In early 2010, Michelle spoke about her husband's smoking habit and said Barack
had quit smoking.[94][95]
On his 55th birthday, August 4, 2016, Obama penned an essay in Glamour, in which
he described how his daughters and the presidency have made him a feminist.[96][97][98]
Religious views
Obama is a Protestant Christian whose religious views developed in his adult life.
[99]
 He wrote in The Audacity of Hope that he "was not raised in a religious
household". He described his mother, raised by non-religious parents, as being
detached from religion, yet "in many ways the most spiritually awakened person ... I
have ever known", and "a lonely witness for secular humanism". He described his
father as a "confirmed atheist" by the time his parents met, and his stepfather as "a
man who saw religion as not particularly useful". Obama explained how, through
working with black churches as a community organizer while in his twenties, he
came to understand "the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur
social change".[100]

The Obamas worship at African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., January 2013

In January 2008, Obama told Christianity Today: "I am a Christian, and I am a

devout Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I
believe that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life." [101] On
September 27, 2010, Obama released a statement commenting on his religious
views, saying:
I'm a Christian by choice. My family didn't—frankly, they weren't folks who went to
church every week. And my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but
she didn't raise me in the church. So I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it
was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that
I would want to lead—being my brothers' and sisters' keeper, treating others as they
would treat me.[102][103]
Obama met Trinity United Church of Christ pastor Jeremiah Wright in October 1987
and became a member of Trinity in 1992.[104] During Obama's first presidential
campaign in May 2008, he resigned from Trinity after some of Wright's statements
were criticized.[105] Since moving to Washington, D.C., in 2009, the Obama family has
attended several Protestant churches, including Shiloh Baptist Church and St. John's
Episcopal Church, as well as Evergreen Chapel at Camp David, but the members of
the family do not attend church on a regular basis. [106][107][108]
In 2016 he said that he gets inspiration from a few items that remind him "of all the
different people I've met along the way". He said that "I carry these around all the
time. I'm not that superstitious, so it's not like I think I necessarily have to have them
on me at all times". The items, "a whole bowl full", include rosary beads given to him
by Pope Francis, a figurine of the Hindu deity Hanuman, a Coptic cross from
Ethiopia, a small Buddha statue given by a monk, and a silver poker chip that used
to be the lucky charm of a biker in Iowa.[109][110]
Law career
Community organizer and Harvard Law School
Two years after graduating from Columbia, Obama moved from New York to
Chicago when he was hired as director of the Developing Communities Project, a
church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes
in Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale on Chicago's South Side. He worked
there as a community organizer from June 1985 to May 1988. [58][111] He helped set up a
job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights
organization in Altgeld Gardens.[112] Obama also worked as a consultant and
instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.[113] In mid-
1988, he traveled for the first time in Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks
in Kenya, where he met many of his paternal relatives for the first time.[114][115]

External video

 Derrick Bell threatens to leave Harvard, April 24, 1990,

11:34, Boston TV Digital Archive[116] Student Barack Obama introduces

Professor Derrick Bell starting at 6:25.

Despite being offered a full scholarship to Northwestern University School of Law,

Obama enrolled at Harvard Law School in the fall of 1988, living in
nearby Somerville, Massachusetts.[117] He was selected as an editor of the Harvard
Law Review at the end of his first year,[118] president of the journal in his second year,
[112][119]
 and research assistant to the constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe while at
Harvard for two years.[120] During his summers, he returned to Chicago, where he
worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley Austin in 1989 and Hopkins
& Sutter in 1990.[121] After graduating with a JD degree magna cum laude[122] from
Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago.[118] Obama's election as the first black
president of the  Harvard Law Review gained national media attention[112][119] and led to
a publishing contract and advance for a book about race relations, [123] which evolved
into a personal memoir. The manuscript was published in mid-1995 as Dreams from
My Father.[123]
University of Chicago Law School and civil rights attorney
In 1991, Obama accepted a two-year position as Visiting Law and Government
Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School to work on his first book.[123][124] He then
taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years,
first as a lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and then as a senior lecturer from 1996 to
2004.[125]
From April to October 1992, Obama directed Illinois's Project Vote, a voter
registration campaign with ten staffers and seven hundred volunteer registrars; it
achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans
in the state, leading Crain's Chicago Business to name Obama to its 1993 list of "40
under Forty" powers to be.[126]
He joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 13-attorney law firm specializing in civil
rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was
an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004.
In 1994, he was listed as one of the lawyers in Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed.
Sav. Bank, 94 C 4094 (N.D. Ill.).[127] This class action lawsuit was filed in 1994 with
Selma Buycks-Roberson as lead plaintiff and alleged that Citibank Federal Savings
Bank had engaged in practices forbidden under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and
the Fair Housing Act.[128] The case was settled out of court.[129] Final judgment was
issued on May 13, 1998, with Citibank Federal Savings Bank agreeing to pay
attorney fees.[130] His law license became inactive in 2007.[131][132]
From 1994 to 2002, Obama served on the boards of directors of the Woods Fund of
Chicago—which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing
Communities Project—and of the Joyce Foundation.[58] He served on the board of
directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding
president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1999. [58]
Legislative career
Illinois Senate (1997–2004)
Main article: Illinois Senate career of Barack Obama

State Senator Obama and others celebrate the naming of a street in Chicago after ShoreBank co-founder
Milton Davis in 1998

Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding Democratic State

Senator Alice Palmer from Illinois's 13th District, which, at that time, spanned
Chicago South Side neighborhoods from Hyde Park–Kenwood south to South
Shore and west to Chicago Lawn.[133] Once elected, Obama gained bipartisan support
for legislation that reformed ethics and health care laws. [134][135] He sponsored a law
that increased tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and
promoted increased subsidies for childcare.[136] In 2001, as co-chairman of the
bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Obama supported Republican
Governor Ryan's payday loan regulations and predatory mortgage
lending regulations aimed at averting home foreclosures.[137][138]
He was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, defeating Republican Yesse
Yehudah in the general election, and was re-elected again in 2002. [139][140] In 2000, he
lost a Democratic primary race for Illinois's 1st congressional district in the United
States House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of
two to one.[141]
In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and
Human Services Committee when Democrats, after a decade in the minority,
regained a majority.[142] He sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of
legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers
they detained, and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of
homicide interrogations.[136][143][144][145] During his 2004 general election campaign for the
U.S. Senate, police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with
police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms.[146] Obama resigned from the
Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the U.S. Senate. [147]
2004 U.S. Senate campaign
Main article: 2004 United States Senate election in Illinois

Results of the 2004 U.S. Senate race in Illinois; Obama won the counties in blue.

In May 2002, Obama commissioned a poll to assess his prospects in a 2004 U.S.
Senate race. He created a campaign committee, began raising funds, and lined up
political media consultant David Axelrod by August 2002. Obama formally
announced his candidacy in January 2003. [148]
Obama was an early opponent of the George W. Bush administration's 2003
invasion of Iraq.[149] On October 2, 2002, the day President Bush and Congress
agreed on the joint resolution authorizing the Iraq War,[150] Obama addressed the first
high-profile Chicago anti-Iraq War rally,[151] and spoke out against the war.[152] He
addressed another anti-war rally in March 2003 and told the crowd "it's not too late"
to stop the war.[153]
Decisions by Republican incumbent Peter Fitzgerald and his Democratic
predecessor Carol Moseley Braun to not participate in the election resulted in wide-
open Democratic and Republican primary contests involving 15 candidates. [154] In the
March 2004 primary election, Obama won in an unexpected landslide—which
overnight made him a rising star within the national Democratic Party, started
speculation about a presidential future, and led to the reissue of his memoir, Dreams
from My Father.[155] In July 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004
Democratic National Convention,[156] seen by nine million viewers. His speech was
well received and elevated his status within the Democratic Party. [157]
Obama's expected opponent in the general election, Republican primary winner Jack
Ryan, withdrew from the race in June 2004.[158] Six weeks later, Alan Keyes accepted
the Republican nomination to replace Ryan. [159] In the November 2004 general
election, Obama won with 70 percent of the vote, the largest margin of victory for a
Senate candidate in Illinois history.[160] He took 92 of the state's 102 counties,
including several where Democrats traditionally do not do well.
U.S. Senate (2005–2008)
Main article: United States Senate career of Barack Obama

Official portrait of Obama as a member of the United States Senate

Obama was sworn in as a senator on January 3, 2005, [161] becoming the only Senate
member of the Congressional Black Caucus.[162] CQ Weekly characterized him as a
"loyal Democrat" based on analysis of all Senate votes from 2005 to 2007. Obama
announced on November 13, 2008, that he would resign his Senate seat on
November 16, 2008, before the start of the lame-duck session, to focus on his
transition period for the presidency.[163]
Legislation
See also: List of bills sponsored by Barack Obama in the United States Senate
Obama cosponsored the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act.[164] He
introduced two initiatives that bore his name: Lugar–Obama, which expanded
the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction concept to conventional weapons;
[165]
 and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which
authorized the establishment of USAspending.gov, a web search engine on federal
spending.[166] On June 3, 2008, Senator Obama—along with Senators Tom
Carper, Tom Coburn, and John McCain—introduced follow-up legislation:
Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008. [167]
Obama sponsored legislation that would have required nuclear plant owners to notify
state and local authorities of radioactive leaks, but the bill failed to pass in the full
Senate after being heavily modified in committee. [168] Regarding tort reform, Obama
voted for the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 and the FISA Amendments Act of
2008, which grants immunity from civil liability to telecommunications companies
complicit with NSA warrantless wiretapping operations.[169]
Obama and U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) visit a Russian facility for dismantling mobile missiles
(August 2005)[170]

In December 2006, President Bush signed into law the Democratic Republic of the
Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act, marking the first federal
legislation to be enacted with Obama as its primary sponsor. [171][172] In January 2007,
Obama and Senator Feingold introduced a corporate jet provision to the Honest
Leadership and Open Government Act, which was signed into law in September
2007.[173][174] Obama also introduced two unsuccessful bills: the Deceptive Practices
and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act to criminalize deceptive practices in federal
elections,[175][176] and the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007.[177]