15% of the vote, while Mary Cheh received 44% of the vote. Strauss was selected to be a superdelegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention where he endorsed Barack Obama. Strauss was re-elected in 2008. Strauss received 65% of the vote in the September Democratic primary, while Democratic challenger Phil Pannell received 33%. In the November general election, Strauss faced Republican Nelson F. Rimensnyder, D.C. Statehood Green Party candidate Keith Ware, and Libertarian Party Candidate Damien Lincoln Ober. Strauss received 82% of the vote, giving him his largest margin of victory ever. Strauss was again re-elected in 2014, with 77.3% of the vote. In 2014, Strauss launched the "51 Stars" campaign, enlisting the help of 51 celebrities and public figures to support the initiative for D.C. Statehood and endorse the District of Columbia as the fifty-first star on the U.S. flag upon admittance to the union. Notable endorsers of the public service campaign included Dave Chappelle, Rosario Dawson, Jonathan Banks, and others. Strauss testified to the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs in 2014 regarding the New Columbia Admission Act of 2013. His testimony argued the historical case for D.C. statehood, saying "We are all Americans. We all deserve to participate in the democracy our nation’s founders set before us. To deny basic rights to the citizens of the National Capital, makes a mockery of our attempts to act as a model of democracy for the rest of the world." In February 2015, Strauss traveled to Iowa to encourage Democratic and Republican party chapters to discuss D.C. statehood at their local caucuses, and inspired the Polk County Democrats to pass a resolution in support of D.C. statehood in March. He traveled there again the following year for the 2016 Iowa caucuses, after running political ads from the national "51 Stars" campaign. Working with a new bipartisan group called Iowans for D.C. Statehood, Strauss took the opportunity to address Democratic precincts in Iowa. At the Iowa caucuses in 2020, Strauss and shadow Senator Michael Donald Brown took over the campaign bus left behind by John Delaney of Maryland, who had exited the presidential race. Decorated with a banner and signs promoting D.C. as the 51st state, the bus was parked outside the Des Moines Marriott Downtown, where hundreds of journalists were staying. Strauss spoke to The Washington Post and said he expected nearly every precinct in every county