Former President Barack Obama is back on the campaign trail, this timing helping Vice President Kamala Harris for the last 27 days of the election season.
Obama’s public campaign appearances will start next Thursday in Pittsburgh.
Newsweek reached out to Obama’s office as well as Harris’s campaign for comment.
“Now that voting has begun, our focus is on persuading and mobilizing voters, especially in states with key races. Many of these races are likely to go down to the wire and nothing should be taken for granted,” Obama adviser Eric Schultz said in a statement to POLITICO.
Anthony Behar/Sipa USA/AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Schultz told NBC that Obama “believes the stakes of this election could not be more consequential and that is why he is doing everything he can to help elect Vice President Harris, Governor Walz and Democrats across the country.”
POLITICO reported that Obama’s work will include issuing additional fundraising emails and direct mail, recording candidate-specific ads, and traveling across the country for coordinated efforts.
The aide said that events that have featured Obama so far in this election cycle have generated over $76 million in contributions for the Democratic ticket.
Last month, Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held separate fundraisers for Harris in Los Angeles.
Obama has been active in Harris’s campaign since she launched it in July after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race. He and his wife, former First Lady Michelle Obama, called Harris to endorse her, a video of which was released that month.
“Michelle and I couldn’t be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office,” the former president told Harris.
Harris added several former Obama advisers to her team this summer, including David Plouffe, who managed Obama’s first presidential campaign.
Obama and Harris first met when the former president was seeking election to the Senate in 2004. A source told CNN Obama has served as a sounding board for Harris for the past 20 years.
At the Democratic National Convention, both Obamas expressed their support for Harris and encouraged Democrats to “do their part” to get her elected.
During the second night of the convention, Obama said Harris would be focused on the country’s problems instead of her own, and she wouldn’t “punish those who refuse to kiss the ring or bend the knee.” He framed former President Donald Trump as a whiny narcissist.
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“Here’s a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago,” Obama said of Trump. “It has been a consistent scream of gripes and grievances that’s actually been getting worse now that he’s afraid of losing to Kamala.”
He also told the crowd “do not boo” Trump but instead go out and vote during the 2024 election.
“There’s the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd sizes,” he said, delivering the punchline as he gestured with his hands in a way that mirrored how Trump gesticulates.
Obama’s campaign work is not just for Harris either. On Friday, Obama endorsed Democratic Representative Elissa Slotkin in the Michigan race, starring in an ad for her. The video, called “Make You Proud”, has Obama discussing Slotkin’s national security experience.
“In the Situation Room, Elissa delivered national security briefings on some of the toughest issues we were dealing with. That’s why I sent Elissa to negotiate on my behalf because she understood when to compromise and when to stand firm,” Obama says in the ad. “And it’s why I nominated her to be an assistant secretary of defense.”
Obama is set to record additional ads and robocalls for down-ballot candidates leading up to November 5.
“His goals are to win the White House, keep the U.S. Senate, and take back the House of Representatives,” Schultz said.