USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Barack Obama of Chicago was first elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996. He was re-elected to office in 1998 and 2002 and in 2004 successfully ran for U.S. Senate from Illinois.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Illinois Senate career of Barack Obama began in 1997 after his first election in 1996 to a two-year term in the Illinois Senate representing Illinois’ 13th Legislative District in Chicago. He was re-elected in 1998 to a four-year term and re-elected again in 2002 to another four-year term.

Detailed explanation-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.

Detailed explanation-4: -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.