Former First Lady Michelle Obama, who delivered an impassioned speech backing Vice President Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, in August, will not be hitting the campaign trail to back up Harris in the fall, CNN reported.
“Former first lady Michelle Obama, who delivered a rallying cry speech in Chicago, is not expected to campaign, instead sticking with her officially non-partisan voter registration efforts,” CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere wrote on Friday.
The revelation is yet another setback for Harris, who has been desperately trying to keep her surge of summer energy riding high into the fall — but not having the highly dynamic Michelle Obama out there for her in a big way is clearly a disappointment for Democrats. It is also possibly part of a growing trend of possible future Democrat presidential candidates doing the bare minimum politically to help Harris but not really investing themselves personally in her success or failure. Of course, if Harris were to win in November, she would, in all likelihood, stand for reelection in 2028, making possible future Democrat stars have to wait all the way until 2032 for another shot at the White House. But, if Harris were to lose to former President Donald Trump, the growing group of Democrats who have their eyes set on the Oval Office would likely have a shot in 2028 — which is just around the corner.
Interestingly, in her DNC speech, Michelle Obama implored Democrats to leave it all on the field.
“We only have two and a half months, y’all, to get this done,” she said in the speech:
Only 11 weeks to make sure every single person we know is registered and has a voting plan. So, we cannot afford for anyone, anyone, anyone, America, to sit on their hands and wait to be called. Don’t complain if no one from the campaign has specifically reached out to you to ask you for your support. There is simply no time for that kind of foolishness. You know what you need to do. So, consider this to be your official ask: Michelle Obama is asking you — no, I’m telling y’all — to do something. Because, y’all, this election is gonna be close. In some states, just a handful — listen to me — a handful of votes in every precinct could decide the winner. So, we need to vote in numbers that erase any doubt. We need to overwhelm any effort to suppress us. Our fate is in our hands. In 77 days, we have the power to turn our country away from the fear, division, and smallness of the past. We have the power to marry our hope with our action. We have the power to pay forward the love, sweat, and sacrifice of our mothers and fathers and all those who came before us.
While she is sitting out the home stretch of the campaign, Michelle Obama’s husband, former President Barack Obama, is expected to help his party’s nominee in the fall.
Barack Obama, the CNN report noted, is “expected to be central” in the “effort” to get what outgoing Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) called “magic” going for Democrats in the fall. CNN wrote that Obama’s “aides [are] working to add to his usual slate of late fall battleground campaign rallies — in person or with online influencers, whom he’s been pushing to use their platforms to get followers to vote.”
“The first taste of that will come next Tuesday, for National Voter Registration Day: Obama already recorded videos and other content in Chicago and at home in Washington that his office estimates will be hitting 30 million users across social media, aimed at younger voters,” Dovere wrote.
