| Hornick, Ed August 17, 2008 | Senator Barack Obama In 1996, Obama officially launched his own political career, winning election to the State Senate as a Democrat from the South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park |
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| He won a scholarship to study economics at the University of , where he met and married Ann Dunham, a white woman from Wichita, , whose father had worked on oil rigs during the and fought with the U | A victory in the primary made him a viable challenger to the early frontrunner, the former first lady and current New York Senator , whom he outlasted in a grueling primary campaign to claim the Democratic nomination in early June 2008 |
Dovere, Edward-Isaac May 25, 2017.
| Obama went on to teach at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2003 | As a state senator, Obama notably went on record as an early opponent of President George W |
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| He won 52 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, defeating both multimillionaire businessman Blair Hull and Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes | Despite tight Republican control during his years in the state senate, Obama was able to build support among both Democrats and Republicans in drafting legislation on ethics and health care reform |
| Obama, the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, checked African-American on the 2010 census questionnaire | Heard on Tell Me More October 29, 2008 |
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| He partnered with another Republican, Senator Richard Lugar of , on a bill that expanded efforts to destroy weapons of mass destruction in Eastern Europe and Russia | Obama met his future wife—Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, a fellow Harvard Law School grad—while working as a summer associate at the Chicago law firm Sidley Austin |
2008 Presidential Campaign On February 10, 2007, Obama formally announced his candidacy for president of the United States.