Rudy Giuliani was inaugurated as the 44th American president on January 20, 2009 and served as president until January 20, 2013. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, was elected president in 2008 after defeating Democrat nominee Dennis Kucinich. Giuliani is the first Italian-American president and the second president to have served as the mayor of a major city1. In the 2012 election, Giuliani was defeated by Democrat nominee Evan Bayh and left office on January 20, 2013.
2008 Election
Rudy Giuliani was selected as the Republican nominee in the 2008 Republican National Convention. He chose former Oklahoma senator Don Nickles as his running mate.
Democrat nominee Dennis Kucinich was very unpopular due to his past as the mayor of Cleveland, which was the most tumultuous in that city’s history.
Giuliani defeated Kucinich in a landslide, carrying the swing states of Florida, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Nevada. Giuliani also carried California, Hawaii, New York, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, and Minnesota.
Giuliani was inaugurated on January 20, 2009, as the 44th U.S. president.
2012 Election
In September 2011, Giuliani announced that he was running for re-election. He easily clinched the Republican nomination. His rival was former Indiana senator Evan Bayh. Leading into election day, Giuliani was confident that he was going to win. However, on election night, Bayh was elected as the 45th U.S. president after he gained that states of Minnesota, Ohio, New Hampshire, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Indiana, Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, Hawaii, and California.
Notes
- The first was Grover Cleveland, who served as the mayor of Buffalo, New York, from January to November 1882. ↩︎