Next Administration's Biographies

Barack Obama

President-elect Barack Obama, who will be the first African-American president of the United States, brings a life story unlike that of any previous U.S. leader. The biracial son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from the American heartland, Obama rose to national prominence with a well-received keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, the same year he was elected to the U.S. Senate from the state of Illinois. Just four years later, he emerged from a crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates to win his party’s nomination for the White House and then defeat Republican candidate John McCain in the general election.

Obama’s parents came from vastly different backgrounds. His mother, Ann Dunham, was born and raised in a small town in Kansas. After her family moved to Hawaii, she met Barack Obama Sr., a Kenyan student enrolled at the University of Hawaii. The two married in 1959, and on August 4, 1961, Barack Obama Jr. was born in Honolulu. Two years later, the elder Obama left his new family, first for graduate study at Harvard and then for a job as a government economist back in Kenya. The young Obama met his father again only once, at age 10.

When Obama was 6, his mother remarried, to an Indonesian oil executive. The family moved to Indonesia, and Obama spent four years attending school in the capital city of Jakarta. He eventually returned to Hawaii and attended secondary school there while living with his maternal grandparents. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 1983, and then attended Harvard Law School, where he was elected the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.

With a continuing strong commitment to public service, Obama decided to make his first run at elected office in 1996, winning a seat from Chicago in the Illinois state senate. In 2000 Obama ran for the U.S. House of Representatives, unsuccessfully challenging Bobby Rush, an incumbent Democrat from Chicago.

In 2004, as Obama sought a U.S. Senate, Democrats noticed his oratorical skills and gave him a speaking role at the party’s convention. That speaks catapulted Obama into the national spotlight as a rising star of the Democratic Party. He later won the Senate race.

In the Senate, Obama served on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, which helps oversee the care of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Foreign Relations Committee which reviews matters related to foreign policy including treaties, national security initiatives and humanitarian assistance.

During his presidential campaign, whose theme was bringing change to the United States, Obama amassed a large number of supporters and raised records amounts of money. He won the U.S. presidency with at 365 Electoral College votes — well above the 270 needed to win. For more, see “Barack Obama Wins Historic Election Victory.”

 

---

Joe Biden
Vice President-elect

Joe Biden is a six-term senator from Delaware. First elected to the Senate in 1972 at age 29, Biden currently is the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, which reviews matters related to foreign policy including treaties, national security initiatives and humanitarian assistance.

He ran for president in 2008, but withdrew from the race shortly after the Iowa caucuses.

Biden was born November 20, 1942 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He attended the University of Delaware and Syracuse Law School in New York. Prior to his senate career, Biden worked as an attorney. Biden and his wife Jill, a professor, have three children and five grandchildren.

Future Vice President Joe Biden

 

---

Michelle Obama
Future First Lady

Michelle Obama, who grew up in Chicago, is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. She met her future husband while working in a Chicago law firm.

She also served as an assistant commissioner of planning at Chicago’s City Hall, and later worked at the University of Chicago, serving in many positions including executive director of community and external affairs.

The Obamas have two young daughters.

The Obama Family