Obama which party president

Initially, however, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton opened a strong lead in the polls, even among African American voters and leaders who admired her and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and did not think Obama had much of a chance to win.

Drawing on his online base of supporters, Obama initially surprised political pundits by matching Clinton and besting Edwards in campaign fundraising throughout He became the co-frontrunner in the race by winning the crucial Iowa caucuses on January 3, , defeating both Edwards and Clinton by an 8-percentage point margin.

Clinton rebounded to win the New Hampshire primary five days later, edging out Obama by 3 points and crushing Edwards by 22 points. In the next important test, Obama opened up a narrow lead in the nomination contest by defeating Clinton handily in the South Carolina primary, 55 percent to 27 percent, on January Black voters, convinced by the Iowa results that whites would vote for an African American candidate for president, gave him overwhelming support in South Carolina and in subsequent primaries.

Edwards finished a distant third in the state where he was born and dropped out of the race on January Other contenders for the nomination, including Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, and Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, had already dropped out because of their poor showings in the initial round of primaries and caucuses. From February through early June, Obama and Clinton battled fiercely through the remaining primaries and caucuses.

But Obama had three crucial advantages that enabled him to eke out a narrow victory for the Democratic nomination. Second, although there was little difference between Clinton and Obama on the issues, Obama ran on a theme of change and Clinton on a theme of experience.

In a year when the economy was steadily deteriorating, change was the more appealing theme, especially among Democratic voters. Third, while fighting Clinton in the thirty-nine primaries, Obama did not overlook the seventeen states and territories that, like Iowa, choose their national convention delegates through caucuses. He strongly out-organized Clinton in those contests, winning fourteen of seventeen caucuses. The delegates Obama won in the caucuses put him over the top.

Clinton withdrew from the nominating contest on June 7, As hard-fought as his victory was, Obama faced only one serious crisis during the entire nomination campaign. But he faced continuing difficulties winning white working class votes against Clinton in the primaries, and some doubted that he could win their support in the general election against the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona.

Partly to expand his appeal to working-class whites, and partly to offset his own modest foreign policy credentials, Obama named Senator Joe Biden of Delaware as his vice presidential running mate on August 22, two days before the opening of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.

Biden had grown up in blue-collar Scranton, Pennsylvania, and during his thirty-six years as a senator from Delaware, had risen up the seniority ladder to become chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. In his acceptance speech on the last night of the convention, Obama outlined the issues of his general election campaign.

Obama left Denver on August 29 enjoying a small lead over McCain in the polls. Palin of Alaska as his running mate. Palin balanced the Republican ticket in some obvious ways: young rather than old Palin was forty-four, McCain was seventy-two , a woman rather than a man, a governor rather than a senator, and a social conservative rather than a national security conservative.

Her rousing acceptance speech at the convention helped to propel the Republican ticket into a small lead over Obama and Biden in early September. McCain maintained his narrow advantage in the polls until mid-September, when the nation's financial sector, heavily invested in risky mortgage-backed securities, went into a sudden tailspin.

In the three nationally televised debates between the presidential candidates that took place from September 26 to October 15, Obama's calm, confident, and competent demeanor impressed voters who were looking for both reassurance that all would be well and a change in the nation's direction.

By eschewing federal campaign funds, Obama was also able to outspend McCain substantially on media advertising and grassroots organizing. In addition, Biden impressed most voters as a much more qualified choice for vice president than Palin, whose unfamiliarity with national and international issues was revealed in a series of television interviews.

And, much to his credit, McCain refused to revive concerns about Obama's long association with Reverend Wright for fear of inflaming racial tensions.

Obama was elected handily on November 4, He defeated McCain by 53 percent to 46 percent in the national popular vote. Exit polls revealed that the two candidates broke even among voters who had participated in the election. But Obama built his majority among first-time voters who surged to the polls in , many of them young or African American. In the Electoral College, Obama prevailed by a margin of to The same logic applies to the current Democratic debate about immigration reform.

It's become popular to propose decriminalizing illegal border crossings. But this only adds ballast to Trump's otherwise baseless argument that the Democrats support "open borders. And the argument that decriminalizing illegal border crossings is the only way to stop family separations ignores the fact that current laws have been on the books for almost a century and the shameful increase in family separations is the direct result of a Trump administration policy which no other president has enforced with the same enthusiasm.

The right move is to back comprehensive immigration reform -- an earlier version of which every Democratic senator voted for, along with a handful of Republicans, including Lindsey Graham. It would increase border security while also finding a way to bring 11 million illegal immigrants out of the shadows, and it would permanently protect the Dreamers. Debate coach: Surprise winners of the debate.

Crucially, the earlier proposal -- backed by President Obama -- also was not afraid to elevate the idea of assimilation, as well as the rule of law. But if a Democratic candidate today were to talk about the importance of immigrants learning English -- like Obama did -- so that our country has a common currency of communication, they'd run the risk of being excommunicated from the party.

A belief in assimilation is not racist. Likewise, we see that the Obama administration's support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership is increasingly demonized by Democrats, as well as by President Trump.

While no trade bill is ever perfect in the particulars, its overarching goal was to contain Chinese expansionism by increasing the economic ties between America and other independent Asian nations. The protectionist impulse now embraced by the far left and far right -- Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump is something close to the new establishment position while actually weakening America's influence around the world.

We need to be strengthening multilateral institutions, not dismantling them, a stance which dovetails with autocrats' agendas. These are just a few examples -- we could add Obama's support for charter schools at a time when candidates like Bernie Sanders and Bill de Blasio seek to dismantle them as some kind of fifth column designed to undermine public education rather than an effort to increase equality of opportunity.

We see it in candidates' desire to say Obama's actions on climate change were woefully insufficient, as were his steps toward criminal justice reform. Good people can disagree in degrees, but the impulse to invalidate arguments as being un-Democratic is intolerant and unwise. This castigation of many Obama-era policies as Republican talking points is especially ironic given that Republicans have abandoned many of the core policies that once united their party: free trade, family values and fiscal responsibility.

In the feedback loop of our politics, the fact that Donald Trump has intimidated his party with a populist mob mentality has emboldened some folks on the far left to feel that arguments about electability or reuniting the nation no longer matter. This risks not just losing an election but compounding how dangerously off-center our politics have become. Successful presidents are committed to forming a more perfect union -- and therefore trying to unite rather than divide their party as well as the nation -- and that is a wise and winning course despite the aberrational electoral success of Donald Trump.

Race to the Top grants recipients were announced in three initial rounds. Race to the Top grant allocations slowed significantly after the first three rounds as many states faced delayed implementation of promised reforms. In , the Department of Education announced a new round of grant allocation -- Race to the Top-District -- in which individual school districts and charter school programs would be eligible for grants.

Sixteen grant winners were selected in A second round of Race to the Top-District grants will be allocated, and in October , 16 finalists for were announced. Despite 45 states and four territories formally adopting Race to the Top's Common Core, public backlash against the new standards became a frequent occurance. In response to the public outcry, several states delayed implementation or rescinded adoption of the standards entirely.

The Alabama state school board voted to revoke their agreement to adhere to the Common Core standards on November 14, However, their existing state standards were still in line with Common Core.

However, others such as Pennsylvania and Indiana chose to halt implementation. The aim of the law was to provide an expansion of health insurance coverage to more Americans through both individual health insurance marketplaces as well as through employer-provided plans.

Minimum requirements of coverage were established and both individual and employer mandates were established over a period of years in order to achieve the goal of expanded coverage.

Subsidies and tax credits are provided to individual consumers based on income level and dependents, and existing programs such as medicaid and CHIP were expanded to increase reach.

Small businesses receive tax credits based on the level of insurance offered to employees, as well. The law included ten essential benefits that plans created after the law's passage needed to include. Existing plans were grandfathered in, but few of the grandfathered plans remain due to frequent changes to health insurance policies.

The case argued that mandated coverage of birth control violated religious freedoms. Both companies' appeals were heard together during a one-hour public session.

Hobby Lobby on June 30, The decision allowed companies to opt out of offering contraceptives on the basis of religious beliefs.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the court's opinion, stating, "We doubt that the Congress that enacted RFRA — or, for that matter, ACA—would have believed it a tolerable result to put family-run businesses to the choice of violating their sincerely held religious beliefs or making all of their employees lose their existing healthcare plans.

The dissenting justices claimed the ruling would allow companies to "opt out of any law saving only tax laws they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs. Although the decision expanded the notion of corporate personhood to include religious rights "to provide protection for human beings," members of the public found it highly divisive in nature as it reaffirmed the Court's "pro-business" stance. The order allowed states to individually determine which policies would be more effective for them to reach their goals.

A similar bill was debated by Congress during Obama's first term in office, but it failed to pass. Obama used powers established by the Clean Air Act to sign the executive order. This is about protecting our health and our homes. This is about protecting local economies and jobs. President Obama gave the EPA until June to finalize the rule, and states had until June to submit their plans, but the EPA pushed the deadline for states back to for those working individually and for those working together on plans.

Coal plants were most likely to be hit the hardest, with estimates that hundreds of the nation's 6, plants would be shut down by He stated, "The proposed rule … will lead to long-term and irreversible job losses for thousands of coal miners, electrical workers, utility workers, boilermakers, railroad workers and others without achieving any significant reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions. Nick Rahall D-WV.

On August 26, , President Obama announced 19 new executive orders aimed at improving the functionality of Veterans Affairs hospitals across the country in addition to providing other benefits for veterans. The executive orders enacted programs in the following areas. Every year in office, the president of the United States addresses Congress on the present state of affairs as well as the administration's goals for the coming year.

Obama sought and won re-election as President of the United States in Other candidates that appeared on the ballot received less than 0.

Allen and Bradford Lyttle. The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may not represent all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer, and campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete.

For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.

Obama won re-election to the U. Presidency in Obama won election to the U. Senate in Based on congressional financial disclosure forms and calculations made available by OpenSecrets. House seats and 2 Senate seats in In state government elections, the Democratic Party lost one governor's office and gained control of two state legislatures.

House seats and 6 Senate seats in The House turnover was the largest differential since the general election. In state government elections, the Democratic Party lost 8 governors ' offices and lost control of 10 state legislatures. The turnover in state legislature control was the largest differential since the general election. Delegate to the DNC click to expand.

Obama was a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention from Illinois. Obama supported Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Superdelegates in were automatic delegates to the Democratic National Convention, meaning that, unlike regular delegates, they were not elected to this position. Also unlike regular delegates, they were not required to pledge their support to any presidential candidate, and they were not bound by the results of their state's presidential primary election or caucus.

In , superdelegates included members of the Democratic National Committee, Democratic members of Congress, Democratic governors, and distinguished party leaders, including former presidents and vice presidents. All superdelegates were free to support any presidential candidate of their choosing at the Democratic National Convention. Illinois had delegates at the Democratic National Convention.

Of this total, were pledged delegates. National party rules stipulated how Democratic delegates in all states were allocated.

Pledged delegates were allocated to a candidate in proportion to the votes he or she received in a state's primary or caucus. A candidate was eligible to receive a share of the state's pledged delegates if he or she won at least 15 percent of the votes cast in the primary or caucus. There were three types of pledged Democratic delegates: congressional district delegates, at-large delegates, and party leaders and elected officials PLEOs.

Congressional district delegates were allocated proportionally based on the primary or caucus results in a given district. At-large and PLEO delegates were allocated proportionally based on statewide primary results.

Twenty-seven party leaders and elected officials served as unpledged delegates. These delegates were not required to adhere to the results of a state's primary or caucus. Note: Please contact us if the personal information below requires an update.

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Department of Defense ordered an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf. United States unmanned drones were deployed above Baghdad to serve as surveillance. Another U. House passed legislation blocking the president from sending ground troops to Iraq without congressional approval passed by a vote of The same day, President Obama authorized the U. Haider al-Abadi, of the same political party as Maliki, was nominated to replace Maliki.

President Obama ordered more military advisers to Iraq to manage the humanitarian efforts of the U. Prime Minister Maliki agreed to step down. The help was requested by the Iraqi government. President Obama announced the administration's plan to form a coalition to fight ISIS as well as a plan to arm and train Syrian rebels fighting against the terrorist group.

Secretary of State John Kerry was to meet with Middle East diplomats on September 11, , in order to establish the coalition. President Obama signed into law congressional authorization for the U.

Pat Roberts calls for Sebelius ' resignation. Colin Powell. Hillary Clinton.