Janice Kay "Jan" Brewer (born September 26, 1944) is the 22nd and current Governor of the U.S. state of Arizona and a member of the Republican Party. She is the fourth woman, and third consecutive woman, to hold the office. Brewer previously served as Secretary of State of Arizona, from January 2003 until then-Governor Janet Napolitano resigned after being selected as Secretary of Homeland Security in January 2009. Brewer became Governor of Arizona as part of the line of succession, as determined by the Arizona constitution.

Born in California, Brewer attended Glendale Community College where she received a radiological technologist certificate, but never earned a degree. She has served as a State Senator and State Representative for Arizona, from 1983 to 1996. Brewer also served as Chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, before running for Arizona Secretary of State in 2002.

Brewer came into the national spotlight when, on April 23, 2010, she signed the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act. The act makes it a state misdemeanor crime for an alien to be in Arizona without carrying registration documents required by federal law, authorizes state and local law enforcement of federal immigration laws, and cracks down on those sheltering, hiring and transporting illegal aliens. Brewer sought a full term as Governor of Arizona in the 2010 Arizona gubernatorial election, and was elected on November 3, 2010, winning with 55% of the vote over Democrat Terry Goddard's 42%.

Barack Hussein Obama II (ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.

Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.