As the incumbent President of the United States of America and candidate of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama battles the Republican Party’s candidate, Mitt Romney to remain in power; this report gives background information of their spouses, who would eventually become the First Lady.
Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama, wife to President Obama, is known for her toned arms and penchant for sleeveless dresses, but the First Lady is much more than a national style icon.
She has overtaken her husband in the approval ratings, scoring 69 percent against his 50 percent, giving her the unofficial title of most popular woman in America.
Mrs Obama is the President’s most important political weapon, although as she once told ABC News: “I rarely step foot in The West Wing.”
Her appearances on the campaign trail have kept donations and votes steadily creeping in but, as she repeatedly says, her first priority is to her teenage daughters, Malia and Sasha.
Part of the reason why Michelle is so well loved by the public is because of her humble roots.
She grew up as Michelle LaVaughn Robinson in Chicago, where she lived in a one-bedroom apartment with her tight-knit family.
Her parents encouraged her and her older brother Craig to go to university, and Michelle studied at Princeton University and Harvard Law School.
The Ivy League-educated lawyer then started work at a law firm where she met her future husband. She married Barack Obama in 1992 and 16 years later she took on the full-time responsibility of being First Lady.
Michelle – who is known to hit the gym as early as 4.30am – was initially reluctant to give up her career, but has since thrown herself into the role with relentless hard work.
One of her main goals has been to tackle childhood obesity with her Let’s Move! campaign.
She set up the White House Kitchen Garden to grow organic food, wrote a book on healthy eating and enlisted the help of Beyonce, who she calls “one of my favourite performers on the planet”.
Mrs Obama has promoted her campaigns by doing push-ups with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, setting a personal best by doing 142 hula-hoop rotations outside the White House and even playing football with David Beckham.
Her popularity has spread across to the UK where she inspired North London schoolgirls by telling them “being smart is cooler than anything in the world”.
Her undeniable warmth has led to her being the only First Lady to break with etiquette by placing her arm around the Queen’s waist.
She is often compared to Jackie Kennedy, but Michelle is truly a modern First Lady, and has more than one million Twitter followers to prove it.
Ann Romney
Ann Lois Davies was born to be a politician’s wife. Her college yearbook entry from 1967 reads: “The first lady. Quiet and soft spoken.”
By then Ann, 18, was already engaged to Mitt Romney who she had known since childhood, and agreed to marry after his senior prom two years earlier.
Her destiny was cut out for her and she dutifully converted to Mormonism – where she requested Mitt’s father, George, baptise her – and had five sons.
With 18 grandchildren, she is now the matriarch of a 30-strong family and is hoping to expand that role to become the matriarch of a nation.
The 63-year-old grandmother is an adult amateur in dressage and uses equestrianism to help her cope with her multiple sclerosis.
She told Good Morning America: “My desire to ride was, and is, so strong that I kept getting healthier and healthier.”
Between them, the Romneys have an estimated £250 million personal fortune and despite Ann’s best efforts they are still seen as out of touch.
On the campaign trail, she suggested she and Mitt were ‘just like you’ by talking about their money troubles as students.
She told the Republican National Convention: “We walked to class together, shared the housekeeping, ate a lot of pasta and tuna fish”, but it soon came out they indirectly lived off money given to them by Mitt’s father.
Ann has since gone on to be blacklisted by the fashion world, as Vogue’s Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour has made clear her dislike of the Republican candidate’s wife.
She has been snubbed by designer Diane Von Fursternberg, hurt publicly on Twitter and criticised by worldwide media, but it has not been as tough as her first time on the campaign trail.
Back in 1994, when Mitt lost in the race for the US Senate, she was so hurt by the media’s portrayal of her as a ‘Stepford Wife’, she famously declared: “You couldn’t pay me to do this again.”
Eighteen years later, she is still by Mitt’s side, standing by him as he makes his attempt to become president of the United States.