USA HISTORY

CONTEMPORARY AMERICA (1992 2013)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

[SOURCES]
Prior to being the president, Obama was the senator of which state?

(A) ** Illinois

(B) California

(C) Wisconsin

(D) Kansas

EXPLANATIONS BELOW

Concept note-1: -A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African-American president of the United States. Obama previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004, and previously worked as a civil rights lawyer before entering politics.

Concept note-2: -Primary and general elections In September 1996, the Hyde Park Herald reported that, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections, Obama would face two challengers on the November general election ballot: Harold Washington Party candidate David Whitehead and Republican Party candidate Rosette Caldwell Peyton.

Concept note-3: -Illinois’s first two senators, Ninian Edwards and Jesse Thomas, took office on that day. Illinois’s longest-serving senator is Shelby Cullom, who served from 1883 to 1913.