Joe Biden’s campaign is unveiling a top asset in its closing of the 2020 campaign: former President Barack Obama.
On the campaign trail, in email inboxes, and on television screens, the former president, still enormously popular among Democrats, is urging people to vote against President Trump and for Biden.
Obama endorsed Biden soon after it was apparent that his former running mate would be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. But aside from his Democratic convention speech warning of a grim future if people vote for Trump, and attaching his name to several dozen fundraising emails for Biden’s campaign, Obama has not been a prominent figure in Biden’s campaign.
With less than two weeks left until Election Day, that’s changing.
Obama, on Wednesday for the first time, hit the campaign trail for Biden — who has not left Delaware all week while he prepares for Thursday’s final presidential debate. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he talked in a small group about issues facing the black community, and he held a COVID-19-friendly drive-in rally, where he issued some of his sharpest rebukes of Trump yet.
“It affects how our children see things, and it affects the way our families get along,” Obama said. “It affects how the world looks at America. That behavior matters. Character matters.”
On Saturday, Obama is scheduled to hit the trail even more and campaign for Biden in Florida, a must-win state for Trump if he hopes to win reelection.
And the former president is hitting the airwaves in television ads created for the Democratic National Committee. But he conspicuously did not mention Biden. Instead, the ads focused on encouraging people to vote.
“It is going to be close, and it could come down to a handful of voters just like you,” Obama said in the ad, which started running Thursday. “I’m asking you to bring this thing home. Leave no doubt. Vote early.”
That ad is running initially on Florida television stations but also appears in digital ads in some swing states, according to Politico.
Obama took the spotlight during a week when Biden wasn’t seen at all on the campaign trail, having no public events and only scheduling a few interviews as he stayed in Delaware during the days leading up to Thursday’s last presidential debate.
The timing of the former president’s campaign-trail debut and sharp attacks on Trump made it unlikely that he would upstage Biden, who is notorious for verbal stumbles.
Obama’s impact on becoming a driving force in the election could be seen on CNN’s Thursday morning homepage. It juxtaposed a photo of Obama and Trump rather than the president and Biden.
“The president is likely infuriated by Obama’s mockery ahead of the debate and polls show this could be his last chance to turn things around,” read a caption with a link leading to a story on Obama’s Thursday speech.
Obama is enormously popular among Democrats and voters as a whole — more popular than Biden.
A Morning Consult poll conducted before the Democratic National Convention found that 58% of all voters, including 91% of Democrats, had favorable views of Obama, while Biden had 46% favorability from all voters and 84% favorability from Democrats.
