Former President Barack Obama is set to deliver a series of speeches in Canada next month, coinciding with the early stages of the 2020 presidential race.
On March 4 and 5, Obama will visit Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Calgary. The events are being billed as “A Conversation with Barack Obama.” Although Obama has been working on a book, it is unclear whether these events are tied to it. His publisher, Penguin Random House, declined to comment.
The speaking engagements will be one of Obama’s first in the public eye since several Democrats began announcing their candidacy for the presidential contest in 2020.
Obama spoke during a private Obama Foundation reception early last month in Hawaii, during which he called for “new blood” in politics. That speech reportedly stung former Vice President Joe Biden, 76, who is considering a 2020 run.
Obama’s speeches in Canada will come at a critical time in the early phase of the Democratic primary fight, with the Iowa caucuses set for Feb. 3, 2020, now only one year away. Polling from ABC News and the Washington Post last week showed there is no clear front-runner yet. Biden, who has yet to announce a candidacy, leads the field with 9 percent, while California Sen. Kamala Harris got 8 percent.
Harris, a former attorney general of California who, like Obama, is African-American and running for president as a first-term senator, often has been compared to the 44th president. She has even been dubbed the “female Barack Obama.” Notably, she drew a larger crowd in Oakland last weekend than Obama did more than 10 years ago officially entering the presidential race.
Other Democrats who have entered the race include Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii; and Julian Castro, who served as secretary of the Housing and Urban Development Department under Obama. Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is reportedly close to announcing another tilt after he lost the 2016 Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton.
Tickets for the events with Obama, which also come months before Canada’s October federal elections, have already gone on sale, with the lowest-end prices in Winnipeg and Calgary listed on Ticketmaster around $92.5 before taxes and fees. The upper end price goes as high as $400.
A spokesman for the the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, which is hosting the Vancouver event, told the Washington Examiner tickets for that speech will start at roughly $151. The spokesman would not say what the upper end of the price range would be.
The 44th president won’t be the only Obama in Canada next month. His wife Michelle, who has repeatedly shot down speculation that she might run for president one day, will be in Vancouver on March 21 as part of her North American book tour for her memoir Becoming.
Naomi Lim contributed to this report.
