Obama to launch midterm campaigning this weekend
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Since leaving office, Barck Obama has been caught between Democrats desperate to see him take a more active role — and whose favorable feelings toward him have skyrocketed.
| Themba Hadebe/AFP/Getty Images
Barack Obama will launch his midterm campaigning this weekend, following a speech on Friday meant to lay out the case against what he’ll call President Donald Trump’s dangerous authoritarian politics.
And he’ll start by emphasizing the battle for the House.
The Friday speech will be at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, after which the former president will fly to Irvine, California, for an event on Saturday highlighting all seven Democrats running in districts currently held by Republicans, but carried by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. All seven are part of Democrats’ efforts to capture the majority in the House.
Obama will be in Cleveland Sept. 13 to campaign for Richard Cordray, his former head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Obama urged Cordray, who was previously the Ohio attorney general, to enter the race for governor, and has been eager to see him win.
Also on the schedule, according to Obama's office: an event in Pennsylvania and a fundraiser for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee in New York City.
Democrats' favorable feelings toward Obama have risen since he left office. The former president has been caught between party members desperate to see him take a more active role and those worried about providing an easy foil for Trump and other Republicans around the country to rally against.
Obama will make more appearances through the fall, but keeping them limited, while also making many endorsements all the way down ballot to races for state legislature and local offices.
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If anyone thought there was any doubt that President Trump was influencing elections or turning out Republican voters, one only needs to ponder two anti-Trump book releases, the infamous insider administration piece in the NY Times and now the return of the man who turned America upside down. It's a gamble. Obama is just as much a lightning rod for Republican voters as he is for his already highly charged progressive base.