Election of 2008

On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, was elected the forty-fourth president of the United States, becoming the first African American to win the office. His victory over Republican senator John McCain came amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, which had erupted weeks before the vote and reshaped the campaign's final stretch.

Obama's run had electrified the Democratic Party. After a long primary battle against Hillary Clinton, he built a campaign around the themes of "hope" and "change," fueled by record small-dollar fundraising and an unprecedented use of the internet to organize volunteers and reach young voters. McCain, a decorated Vietnam veteran, chose Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate in a bid to energize conservatives.

The collapse of the financial system in September 2008 proved decisive. As markets crashed and the Bush administration scrambled to assemble a bailout, voters' attention swung to the economy, an issue that favored the Democrats. Obama won 365 electoral votes to McCain's 173, flipping long-red states such as Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana.

The result was widely received as a milestone in the nation's long struggle with race, drawing enormous crowds and global attention to his inauguration. Obama entered office facing a cratering economy and two wars, and the soaring expectations of his election would prove difficult to meet in the polarized years that followed.