As President Joe Biden navigates shaky terrain with Black voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election, he may have at least one secret weapon on the campaign trail: former President Barack Obama.
“President Obama continues to be an asset for Democrats,” Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist, told theGrio. “Fundraising … [and] mobilizing Black voters is a place he can help.”
“[Obama] was a key part of the closing crew in 2020 [and] … he was engaged in ’22 in some key places,” said Payne, referencing Obama’s stumps throughout the final days of the 2020 presidential election, and the 2022 midterms. The election two years ago resulted in Democrats over-performing in contests against Republican candidates following the majority-conservative U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Payne, who was a staffer with the 2008 presidential campaign of former Sen. John Edwards, Obama’s opponent in the Democratic primary, remembers the effectiveness of Obama’s campaign style and how much it resonated with Democratic voters. That same political savvy can be an asset to his former vice president, Payne believes, by holding together his coalition, particularly Black voters, the Democratic Party’s most reliable and consistent voting bloc.
America’s first Black president, who maintained a solid approval rating when he left office in 2016, remains a popular political figure who draws turnout and enthusiasm among key groups important to the Biden coalition. That coalition, held together by Black voters and arguably architected by Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, sent Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to the White House.
Obama could be an effective surrogate to energize and persuade Black voters amid steady polling that shows they remain unmoved by Biden’s handling of the economy and outraged by his administration’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza against the terrorist group Hamas that has so far…
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