Barack Obama wins U.S. Senate Democratic primary in Illinois

Jet, April 5, 2004

Illinois State Senator Barack Obama won a landslide victory in the recent Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate and is well on his way to becoming the only Black in the Senate.

"I am fired up! I am fired up!," an overjoyed Obama told supporters after his victory at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago.

"I think it's fair to say the conventional wisdom was we could not win. We did not have enough money. We did not have enough organization. There was no way that a skinny guy from the South Side (of Chicago) with a funny name like 'Barack Obama' could win a statewide race. Sixteen months later we are here, and Democrats all across Illinois--suburbs, city, Downstate, upstate, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian--have declared, "Yes, we can! Yes, we can!'"

Sen. Obama won the Illinois primary election with 53 percent of the vote, beating state Comptroller Dan Hynes who had 24 percent of the vote in the 7-person race.

"This is a great day for all of us," Obama told supporters. "The amazing power that you have displayed in this election gives me hope and puts me in the mood to believe again. We have something here that is very special. We have a righteous wind at our backs."

Obama is the favorite to win in the November general election and faces Republican Senate candidate Jack Ryan.

He is on track to become the nation's fifth Black U.S. senator and the first Black male senator from Illinois. Carol Moseley Braun became the first Black senator from Illinois in 1992. Them are currently no Blacks in the Senate.

The son of a Kenyan father and mother from Kansas, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University with a degree in political science and a specialty in international relations. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he served as the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review. He was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996.

Pushing ahead to the November election, Obama notes, "I'm trying to avoid reading my own press," he said. "We enjoyed a terrific victory, but now we've get a lot of work to do."