Claim: John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running partner.

The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election . It was held on Tuesday , November 4 , 2008 . Democratic Party nominees Barack Obama , a U.S. Senator from Illinois , and his running mate Joe Biden , a long-time U.S. Senator from Delaware , defeated Republican Party nominees John McCain , a long-time and current U.S. Senator from Arizona , and his running mate Sarah Palin , a Governor of Alaska . Obama became the first African American ever to be elected president of the United States , and Joe Biden became the first Roman Catholic ever elected vice president .   The incumbent president , George W. Bush , of the Republican Party , was ineligible to be elected to a third term due to term limits in the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution . McCain secured the Republican nomination by March 2008 , but the Democratic nomination was marked by a sharp contest between Obama and initial front-runner Senator Hillary Clinton , with Obama not securing the nomination until early June . Early campaigning had focused heavily on the Iraq War and the unpopularity of outgoing Republican President George W. Bush , but all candidates focused on domestic concerns as well , which grew more prominent as the economy experienced the onset of the Great Recession and a major financial crisis that peaked in September 2008 .   Obama would go on to win a decisive victory over McCain , winning both the popular vote and the electoral college , with 365 electoral votes to McCain 's 173 ; he received the largest percentage of the popular vote for a Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 . Obama 's total vote amount of 69.5 million votes is the highest number ever won by a presidential candidate . Obama 's successes in obtaining a major party 's nomination and winning the general election were both firsts for the African American community . Although Hillary Clinton did not win the Democratic nomination , she was the first woman to win a major American party 's presidential primary for the purposes of delegate selection when she won the primary in New Hampshire on January 8 . She later went on to win the Democratic nomination but lose the general election to Donald Trump in 2016 . She also was the first woman to be an American presidential candidate in every primary and caucus in every state . Similarly , Sarah Palin became the first woman to appear on a Republican presidential ticket , and the second woman overall to appear on a major party 's presidential ticket -LRB- after Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 -RRB- .   This was also the first election in which neither candidate was born in the contiguous United States . Obama was born in Hawaii and McCain was born at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone . This election also made McCain currently the only Senator who previously served as a presidential nominee and still remains incumbent , after John Kerry 's resignation from the U.S. Senate in 2013 .   As of 2017 , this is the last time Nebraska -LRB- 2nd congressional district only -RRB- , Indiana , and North Carolina voted for the Democratic candidate . This election also became the first time that Missouri backed the losing candidate since 1956 , with both Kentucky & Tennessee failing to do the same since 1960 . Likewise , this would also be the first time both Arkansas & Louisiana did not vote for the winning candidate since 1968 , while being among the most recent states which voted third party that same year as well .