The United States presidential election of 2008, scheduled for Tuesday November 4, 2008 will be the 56th consecutive quadrennial United States presidential election and will select the President of the United States and Vice President of the United States.

The Republican Party has chosen John McCain, the senior United States Senator from Arizona as its nominee; Barack Obama, the junior United States Senator from Illinois, has been chosen as the nominee for the Democratic Party. The 2008 election is particularly notable because it is the first time in U.S. history that two sitting senators will run against each other for president, and because it is the first time an African American is a presidential nominee for a major party, as well as the first time both major candidates were born outside the continental United States - Hawaii for Obama and the Canal Zone in Panama for McCain. With African-American candidate Barack Obama, who is of mixed African and Caucasian parentage, as the Democratic Party nominee for President and John McCain\'s selection of female Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican Party nominee for Vice-President, the eventual winning ticket is virtually assured of having a historic context. Barring unforeseen events, this will be the first time in American history in which a candidate on the winning ticket is either a woman or an African American.

The election will coincide with the 2008 Senate elections in thirty-three states, House of Representatives elections in all states, and gubernatorial elections in eleven states, as well as various state referendums and local elections. As in the 2004 presidential election, the allocation of electoral votes to each state will be based partly on the 2000 Census. The president-elect and vice president-elect are scheduled to be inaugurated on January 20, 2009.