The 2008 United States presidential election was the 56th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of John McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, and Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska. Obama became the first African American to be elected to the presidency, as well as being only the third sitting United States senator elected president, joining Warren G. Harding and John F. Kennedy. Meanwhile, this was only the second successful all-senator ticket since the 1960 election and is the only election where both major party nominees were sitting senators. This was the first election since 1952 in which neither the incumbent president nor vice president was on the ballot, as well as the first election since 1928 in which neither ran for the nomination.
New Democrats, also known as centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party in the United States. As the Third Way faction of the party, they are seen as culturally liberal on social issues while being moderate or fiscally conservative on economic issues. New Democrats dominated the party from the late 1980s through the mid-2010s, and continue to be a large coalition in the modern Democratic Party.
Ronald Alan Klain is an American attorney, political consultant, and former lobbyist who served as White House chief of staff under President Joe Biden from 2021 to 2023.
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is an American politician and diplomat who served as the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a U.S. senator representing New York from 2001 to 2009, and as the first lady of the United States to former president Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the party's nominee in the 2016 presidential election, becoming the first woman to win a presidential nomination by a major U.S. political party and the first woman to win the popular vote for U.S. president.
The following is a timeline of major events leading up to and immediately following the United States presidential election of 2008. The election was the 56th quadrennial United States presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008, but its significant events and background date back to about 2002. The Democratic Party nominee, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, defeated the Republican Party's nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona.
This article lists potential candidates for the Democratic nomination for Vice President of the United States in the 2008 presidential election. After Illinois Senator Barack Obama became the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee on June 3, 2008, Obama formed a small committee, made up of James A. Johnson, Eric Holder and Caroline Kennedy, to help him select a running mate. Veteran Democratic lawyer and advisor James "Jim" Hamilton, of the firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, later replaced Johnson in vetting candidates.
Barack Obama, then junior United States senator from Illinois, announced his candidacy for president of the United States on February 10, 2007, in Springfield, Illinois. After winning a majority of delegates in the Democratic primaries of 2008, on August 23, leading up to the convention, the campaign announced that Senator Joe Biden of Delaware would be the vice presidential nominee. At the 2008 Democratic National Convention on August 27, Barack Obama was formally selected as the Democratic Party nominee for president of the United States in 2008. He was the first African American in history to be nominated on a major party ticket. On November 4, 2008, Obama defeated the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, making him the president-elect and the first African American elected president.
In the United States, a presidential transition is the process during which the president-elect of the United States prepares to take over the administration of the federal government of the United States from the incumbent president. Though planning for transition by a non-incumbent candidate can start at any time before a presidential election and in the days following, the transition formally starts when the General Services Administration (GSA) declares an “apparent winner” of the election, thereby releasing the funds appropriated by Congress for the transition, and continues until inauguration day, when the president-elect takes the oath of office, at which point the powers, immunities, and responsibilities of the presidency are legally transferred to the new president.
Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime is a book by political journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin about the 2008 United States presidential election. Released on January 11, 2010, it was also published in the United Kingdom under the title Race of a Lifetime: How Obama Won the White House. The book is based on interviews with more than 300 people involved in the campaign. It discusses factors including Democratic Party presidential candidate John Edwards' extramarital affair, the relationship between Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and his vice presidential running mate Joe Biden, the failure of Republican Party candidate Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign and Sarah Palin's vice presidential candidacy.
On April 4, 2011, Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, announced his candidacy for re-election as president. On September 5, 2012, he again became the nominee of the Democratic Party for the 2012 presidential election. Along with his running mate, Vice President Joe Biden, Obama was opposed in the general election by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, along with various minor candidates from other parties. The election took place on Tuesday, November 6, 2012.
Presidential primaries and caucuses were organized by the Democratic Party to select the 4,051 delegates to the 2016 Democratic National Convention held July 25–28 and determine the nominee for President in the 2016 United States presidential election. The elections took place within all fifty U.S. states, the District of Columbia, five U.S. territories, and Democrats Abroad and occurred between February 1 and June 14, 2016. Between 2008 and 2024, this was the only Democratic Party primary in which the nominee had never been nor had ever become President of the United States. This was the first Democratic primary to nominate a woman for President.
HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton is a 2014 book by two Washington-based reporters, Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen, about the tenure of Hillary Rodham Clinton as United States Secretary of State and about how she recovered politically from her loss in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries.
The 2016 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton was announced in a YouTube video on April 12, 2015. Clinton was the 67th United States Secretary of State and served during the first term of the Obama administration, from 2009 to 2013. She was previously a United States Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, and is the wife of former President Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton served as First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001.
Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign is an American book by political journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes about Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign. The book was published on April 18, 2017, by Crown Publishing Group, and aims to determine why Clinton lost the election to Donald Trump. It is a follow-on to the same authors' 2014 work HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton and made use of many of their large number of contacts within Clintons' circles. Shattered spent two weeks in the New York Times Best Seller list.
The 2020 United States presidential election in North Dakota was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. North Dakota voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican nominee, incumbent President Donald J. Trump from Florida, and running mate Vice President Michael R. Pence from Indiana against Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden from Delaware, and his running mate Senator Kamala Harris of California. North Dakota has three electoral votes in the Electoral College.
Greg Schultz is an American political advisor. He served as the campaign manager and general election strategist for the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign, the senior advisor to Vice President Biden under President Barack Obama, and the deputy political director in Ohio for the Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign and the Ohio State Director for the Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign.
This bibliography of Joe Biden is a chronological list of written and published works, by and about Joe Biden. In addition to works authored by Biden, the titles listed here are limited to notable non-fiction books about Biden or his presidency, published by well-known authors, journalists, and scholars. Tertiary sources, satire, and self-published books are excluded.
Jonathan Allen is an American political journalist and pundit. He has been a senior political analyst and political reporter for NBC News Digital since 2017. Allen has also reported for Congressional Quarterly, The Hill, Politico, Bloomberg News, and Vox. Allen's partnership with fellow political correspondent Amie Parnes resulted in two best-selling books on Hillary Clinton. In 2008, he won the Everett Dirksen Award and Sandy Hume Award.
Amie Parnes is an American political journalist. She has been a senior correspondent for The Hill since 2024, having previously worked there from 2011 to 2023. She was the chief White House correspondent for The Messenger from the site's launch in May 2023 to its closure in January 2024. Parnes has also reported for CNN and Politico. Parnes' partnership with fellow political correspondent Jonathan Allen resulted in two best-selling books on Hillary Clinton.
