Obama was elected to the Illinois state senate in 1996. Four years later, he made an unsuccessful run for the U.S. House of Representatives and in 2002 won reelection to the state senate, running unopposed. In 2004 he ran for an open seat in the U.S. Senate. Midway through the campaign, Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, raising his national stature. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2004 with a landslide 70% of the vote.