Can the Obamas save Kamala Harris’s failing campaign? Our experts are unanimous

Barack and Michelle Obama’s political appeal does not carry the weight it once did

To me, there was never any doubt that the Obamas have failed to feel the Kamala Harris campaign “joy”. How else to explain their lacklustre endorsement of Harris’s campaign back in the summer? Presidential endorsements are a big deal – particularly when laden with the “history-making” optics of one African-American Democrat passing the torch onto another (and let’s not forget Harris is also Indian-American and a woman). So the Obama seal-of-approval was key – and overdue by the time it arrived on July 26.
When it finally materialised, it was anything but a show-stopper. Rather than Harris appearing on stage with Barack and Michelle at some rah-rah campaign rally or even on the White House lawn, the Obamas literally phoned in their endorsement. Well, they delivered the 2024 equivalent – a pre-recorded video distributed by the Harris team on social media. And it felt as personal and sincere as a voicemail left by some mediocre hook-up on Tinder.
Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend @KamalaHarris. We told her we think she’ll make a fantastic President of the United States, and that she has our full support. At this critical moment for our country, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in… pic.twitter.com/0UIS0doIbA
Lukewarm and downright lazy, it set the foundational tone for the couple’s relationship with the Harris campaign – one they appear to be attempting to overhaul as the vice-president struggles at the finish line. Now just a few weeks before election day, Barack is out there berating black men for not supporting Harris while Michelle will hit the ground with the vice-president in Georgia and Michigan next week.
Will it work? The problem is that, much like the Obamas back in July, voters (of all colours) don’t appear to be buying what Harris is selling. Despite all that inimitable Obama star power, the former first couple missed their real moment to make the Harris campaign their own. After all, Michelle managed to show up at a California Costco to promote her new health beverage last month, but she is only now showing up for Harris? Where’s the sisterhood in that?
Kamala Harris first turned to Barack Obama during the Democratic National Convention in August, when she accepted her party’s nomination for this election.
Both he and his wife Michelle gave speeches received with rapturous applause by Democratic delegates, after weeks of press reporting that the couple had leaned on Joe Biden to leave the presidential race.
Now, they are becoming a fixture on the campaign trial. Mr Obama spoke with Ms Harris in Michigan on Friday, and there are more events planned with them in the coming weeks.
It is obvious why the Harris campaign is deploying the Obamas in these final weeks of the campaign. Mr Obama is one of the most electorally successful Americans ever to have lived, and the polls show Ms Harris’s support is flagging among black men, a constituency he is uniquely suited to address.
During the debates over who would replace Mr Biden, Mrs Obama was consistently named by Democrats as their preferred nominee – ahead of Ms Harris.
What is less obvious is that the superstar political couple can do anything to help this time.
Both hail from an era before Donald Trump, who has turned the Democratic Party’s coalition of blue collar voters and liberals on its head with his seductive brand of populism and machismo.
Mr Obama made his name as the Illinois senator with a remarkable gift for optimistic rhetoric, but in the last eight years, politics has become divided enough that negative campaigning is the name of the game.
When they speak, the Obamas now criticise Trump directly and repeat Ms Harris’s doom-laden messaging about the threat to democracy that he poses.
This line of argument has not proven effective in winning back support from voters who have flipped to Trump in the last four years, many of whom find his own message of national renewal more appealing.
There are also differences in the way that Ms Harris, who has Indian and Jamaican-American heritage, think and talk about race.
Mr Obama has a complex legacy, but is rightly remembered chiefly as the first black man to make it to the White House.
Ms Harris, meanwhile, avoids the subject of her ethnic background for fear of discouraging intolerant voters. The fact she is a woman – a characteristic Hillary Clinton put at the centre of her campaign – is similarly ignored.
Nor is it clear that the Obamas can help Ms Harris with the biggest problem her campaign faces, that voters do not trust her on the economy or immigration.
Mr Obama is remembered for the passage of the Affordable Care Act and other work on social security, but his record on immigration is largely forgotten. If the subject does come up in political debate, it is usually to point out that he too faced high numbers of illegal crossings on the southern US border.
His economic credentials – earned from the American recovery after the 2008 economic crash – do not easily translate to an era where inflation, not growth, is the main subject of debate.
In short, the Obamas are good at reminding voters they once supported a progressive, optimistic party he led, and which is now represented by Ms Harris.
They are unlikely to do her much harm on the campaign trail, but their political appeal does not carry the weight it once did. Whatever is wrong with the Harris campaign, the Obamas are not the answer.