Mitt Romney in the context of Paul Ryan

Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. Obama, a Democrat from Illinois, took office after defeating the Republican nominee John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. Four years later, he won re-election in the 2012 presidential election, after defeating the Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Alongside Obama's presidency, the Democratic Party also held their majorities in the House of Representatives during the 111th U.S. Congress following the 2008 elections, thereby attained an overall federal government trifecta. Obama is the first African American president, the first multiracial president, the first non-white president, and the first president born in Hawaii. Obama was constitutionally limited to two terms (the second re-elected Democrat President to be so) and was succeeded by Republican Donald Trump, who won the 2016 presidential election against Obama's preferred successor, Hillary Clinton. Historians and political scientists rank him among the upper tier in historical rankings of American presidents.

Obama's accomplishments during the first 100 days of his presidency included signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 relaxing the statute of limitations for equal-pay lawsuits; signing into law the expanded Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP); winning approval of a congressional budget resolution that put Congress on record as dedicated to dealing with major health care reform legislation in 2009; implementing new ethics guidelines designed to significantly curtail the influence of lobbyists on the executive branch; breaking from the Bush administration on a number of policy fronts, except for Iraq, in which he followed through on Bush's Iraq withdrawal of US troops; supporting the UN declaration on sexual orientation and gender identity; and lifting the 7½-year ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Obama also ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, in Cuba, though it remains open. He lifted some travel and money restrictions to the island.

The Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games of 2002 (SLOC) was the organization responsible for the 2002 Winter Olympics and 2002 Winter Paralympics in Salt Lake City, USA. The SLOC secured their bid for the 2002 Olympic Games in 1995. After the SLOC was exposed to be in disarray in the ensuing years, Mitt Romney was hired in 1999 to turn around the failing organization. Under Romney's leadership, the SLOC ended up hosting a successful Olympic games with financial surpluses.

In June 2001, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) had signed an agreement that would ensure that the staging of the Paralympic Games is automatically included in the bid for the Olympic Games. The agreement came into effect at the 2008 Paralympic Summer Games in Beijing, and the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver. However, the Salt Lake 2002 Organizing Committee, chose to follow the practice of "one bid, one city" already at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City, and hosted both the Olympics and the Paralympics.

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of John McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, and Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska. Obama became the first African American to be elected to the presidency.

Incumbent Republican president George W. Bush was ineligible to pursue a third term due to the term limits established by the Twenty-second Amendment; this was the first election since 1952 in which neither the incumbent president nor vice president was on the ballot, and the first since 1928 in which neither ran for the nomination. McCain secured the Republican nomination by March 2008, defeating his main challengers Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, and selected Palin as his running mate. The Democratic primaries were marked by a sharp contest between Obama and the initial front-runner, former first lady and Senator Hillary Clinton, as well as other challengers who dropped out before most of the primaries were held, including Senators John Edwards and Joe Biden. Clinton's victory in the New Hampshire primary made her the first woman to win a major party's presidential primary. After a long primary season, Obama narrowly secured the Democratic nomination in June 2008 and selected Biden as his running mate.

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 6, 2012. Incumbent Democratic president Barack Obama and his running mate, incumbent vice president Joe Biden, were elected to a second term. They defeated the Republican ticket of former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney and U.S. representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

As the incumbent president, Obama secured the Democratic nomination without serious opposition. The Republicans experienced a competitive primary. Romney was consistently competitive in the polls and won the support of many party leaders, but he faced challenges from a number of more conservative contenders. Romney secured his party's nomination in May, defeating former senator Rick Santorum, former speaker of the House and Georgia congressman Newt Gingrich, and Texas congressman Ron Paul, among other candidates.

Joe Biden served as the 47th vice president of the United States during the presidency of Barack Obama from January 20, 2009, to January 20, 2017. Biden, a member of the Democratic Party who previously served as a senior U.S. senator representing Delaware from 1973 to 2009, was selected as Obama's running mate and took office following their victory in the 2008 presidential election over Republican nominees John McCain and Sarah Palin. Four years later, in the 2012 presidential election, they defeated Republican nominees Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, to win re-election. Biden was the first vice president from Delaware and the first Roman Catholic vice president in U.S. history.

Alongside Biden's vice presidency, the Democratic Party also held their majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate during the 111th U.S. Congress following the 2008 elections, attained an overall federal government trifecta. Biden was more influential than most vice presidents due to his long Senate career and relationships with both members of Congress and politicians abroad. His relationship with Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell was particularly important after the Republicans regained control of Congress in the 2010 and 2014 elections, and the two were instrumental in ending the 2011 and 2013 debt-ceiling crises.

Voters of the Republican Party elected state delegations to the 2012 Republican National Convention in presidential primaries. The national convention then selected its nominee to run for President of the United States in the 2012 presidential election. There were 2,286 delegates chosen, and a candidate needed to accumulate 1,144 delegate votes at the convention to win the nomination. The caucuses allocated delegates to the respective state delegations to the national convention, but the actual election of the delegates were, many times, at a later date. Delegates were elected in different ways that vary from state to state. They could be elected at local conventions, selected from slates submitted by the candidates, selected at committee meetings, or elected directly at the caucuses and primaries.

The primary contest began in 2011 with a fairly wide field. Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and the runner-up in the 2008 primaries, had been preparing to run for president ever since the 2008 election, and was from early on the favorite to win the nomination. However, he lacked support from the party's conservative wing and the media narrative soon revolved around speculation on a conservative or "anti-Romney" candidate who would challenge Romney in the primaries. Several candidates rose in the polls throughout the year. However, the field was down to four candidates by February 2012: Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, U.S. Representative Ron Paul, former Governor Romney and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. It was the first presidential primary to be affected by a Supreme Court ruling that allowed unlimited independent expenditures to support or oppose candidates through super PACs.

Marco Rubio, then the junior United States senator from Florida, formally announced his 2016 presidential campaign on April 13, 2015, at the Freedom Tower in Downtown Miami. Early polling showed Rubio, who was considered a potential candidate for vice president by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, as a frontrunner candidate for the Republican nomination for president of the United States in 2016 since at least the end of the 2012 election. Rubio was the second Cuban American to run for president, with Republican Ted Cruz announcing his campaign three weeks earlier. He suspended his campaign on March 15, 2016, after finishing second in Florida's primary.

Later that year, the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, was elected president in the presidential election. Eight years later, after Trump's re-election to a non-consecutive term, he nominated Rubio as Secretary of State.