when was barack obama elected president?
1/10/2011
entailment
 By definition , the inauguration marked the formal culmination of the presidential transition of Barack Obama that began when he won the United States presidential election on November 4 , 2008 and became the President @-@ elect . In accordance with Article I , Section 6 of the United States Constitution , Obama resigned from the United States Senate effective November 16 , 2008 . He was formally elected by the Electoral College on December 15 , 2008 . The results were certified by a joint session of Congress on January 8 , 2009 . 

entailment
 Subsequent to this election Obama was elected to the United States Senate in 2004 . He was then elected President of the United States in 2008 and re @-@ elected in 2012 . 

entailment
 Barack Obama , the first African American , and multiracial president , was elected in 2008 amid the Great Recession , which began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009 . 

entailment
 In 2004 , Obama received national attention during his campaign to represent Illinois in the United States Senate with his victory in the March Democratic Party primary , his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July , and his election to the Senate in November . He began his presidential campaign in 2007 and , after a close primary campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2008 , he won sufficient delegates in the Democratic Party primaries to receive the presidential nomination . He then defeated Republican nominee John McCain in the general election , and was inaugurated as president on January 20 , 2009 . Nine months after his inauguration , Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate . 

entailment
 In 2004 , Obama was the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention . After his speech , political pundits speculated about his future as a possible presidential candidate . After being elected to the United States Senate that year , and amid much speculation in the media regarding his future plans , Obama announced that he would seek the 2008 democratic presidential nomination in February 2007 and went on to defeat Hillary Clinton in one of the closest presidential nomination races in American history . He then defeated fellow senator John McCain in the general election to become President of the United States . 
