Former President Barack Obama is returning to the campaign trail to stump for Democratic gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia as they gear up for next month’s elections.
Thursday’s events mark the first time the former president is stepping back into the political spotlight since leaving the White House.
Unlike more low-key appearances earlier this year, Obama’s foray into two states won’t be a one-and-done. He is planning more public appearances as the year closes, and preparation for the 2018 midterm elections begins.
Engaged and active
“Obama seems to be determined to be an engaged and active former president who’s playing a role in different issues and is involved in politics,” Rutgers University professor David Greenberg said.
Obama is hoping to sway voters in New Jersey and Virginia, the only two gubernatorial races this year. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, are term-limited. Those Nov. 7 races will be considered a bellwether of Democrats’ strength in the face of President Donald Trump’s victory last year.
Obama will first drop in on campaign workers in Newark, New Jersey, for a private “canvass kickoff” for Democratic candidate Phil Murphy, who is running against Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno. The former president will then head to Richmond, Virginia, to rally support for Democrat Ralph Northam in his campaign against Republican Ed Gillespie.
At the end of the month, Obama will go to Chicago to head up his first Obama Foundation leadership summit Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, bringing in speakers such as England’s Prince Harry, former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and artists such as Gloria Estefan, Chance the Rapper and indie rock band The National.
Still popular
Obama’s popularity is still undeniable. In an August NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 51 percent of Americans said they have a favorable opinion of Obama, while 35 percent had a negative opinion. In the same poll, 36 percent said they had a positive opinion of Trump and 52 percent had a negative opinion.
In Richmond, thousands of people lined up Tuesday to get tickets to Obama’s rally.
Retired Richmond social worker Nancy Jackson, 67, said she missed Obama “tremendously” and wished he could serve a third, fourth and fifth term. She said black voters like her have been despondent since Trump took office.
“I think Obama will bring some light to the end of the tunnel,” she said.
Defending policies
Obama never completely disappeared from public life, in part because of Trump’s constant criticism and efforts to undo much of Obama’s legacy after eight years in office. He has publicly defended his policies that Trump and the GOP-led Congress have set out to dismantle: the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allowed immigrants brought into the country illegally as children to be temporarily shielded from deportation.
Obama was forced to return “pretty quickly,” presidential historian Julian Zelizer of Princeton University said.
“The current president has changed all the conventional assumptions about what to do,” Zelizer said. “There is a sense of urgency that makes this moment different than others and former President Obama has continued to be directly in Trump’s line of fire, both his policies and his legacy.”
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