Barack Obama Wins Reelection
November 7, 2012
Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States and the first African American elected to that office, secured a second term in the White House on November 6 after a costly, closely fought battle against challenger Mitt Romney. In winning both the popular vote and the Electoral College, President Obama, a Democrat, overcame charges by his Republican opponent that his policies were unlikely to restore economic prosperity after the severe economic crisis of 2008-2009. President Obama won a preliminary total of at least 59,600,000 popular votes and 303 electoral votes, 33 more than the 270 needed to capture the presidency. Florida remained too close to call as of Wednesday morning.
President Barack Obama was reelected president of the United States on November 6, 2012. (The White House)
Shortly taking office in January 2009, President Obama signed a bill allocating $787 billion for stimulus programs and tax cuts to revive the economy. President Obama also took steps to bail out troubled American automakers and to strengthen the financial industry. In addition, he promoted and signed legislation that boosted government support for pay equality for women. His signature achievement was the passage of a historic health care reform bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which included provisions extending health care coverage to about 30 million uninsured Americans. In December 2010, Congress passed, and President Obama signed, a law ending the ban on openly homosexual soldiers in the armed forces.
In 2009, President Obama filled a campaign pledge and withdrew all U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities. The Iraq War was declared officially over on December 15, 2011. He also set a timetable of 2014 for the withdrawal of all U.S. combat forces from Afghanistan. In May 2011, President Obama announced that a team of Navy SEALs had shot and killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qa`ida, the group responsible for the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001.
In November 2010, voters gave Republicans control of the House of Representatives. For the remainder of President Obama’s first term, passing legislation became exceedingly difficult. The president also came under significant criticism by a loose collection of conservative political activist groups called the Tea party movement.
Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father was Kenyan and his mother was American. He graduated from Columbia University in New York City in 1983. In 1985, he worked in Chicago for a church group that helped poor neighborhoods in the city. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991. While there, he became the first African American to serve as president of the Harvard Law Review, an important monthly law journal (magazine). Obama then practiced law in Chicago. He worked especially on civil rights issues. He also taught law at the University of Chicago.
Beginning in 1997, Obama served in the Illinois Senate. In 2004, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. That election and his stirring keynote address to the Democratic National Convention earlier that year gave him significant national exposure. Obama declared his intention to run for president in February 2007. He won the Democratic nomination against a wide field of competitors, including Senator Joe Biden and Hillary Rodham Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton. Obama then chose Biden as his vice-presidential running mate and, after taking office as president, tapped Mrs. Clinton to be his secretary of state.
Additional World Book articles:
- Economic Crisis: The Banking Meltdown (a special report)
- Economic Crises, Then and Now (a special report)
- Economic Crisis: The Government Jumps In (a special report)
- Economics, United States (2011) (a Back in Time article)
- Economics, United States (2010) (a Back in Time article)
- Economics, United States (2009) (a Back in Time article)
- Economics, United States (2008) (a Back in Time article)
