Former President Barack Obama has said he’s “all in” for President Joe Biden’s re-election effort. However, Michelle is not.
Many Democrats are feeling anxious about the upcoming November elections and are hoping that Michelle Obama will take on a more prominent role in the campaign. There are even whispers that she might become a replacement for a politically weakened incumbent on the 2024 ticket, creating a fantasy candidate for both parties, albeit for different reasons.
Supporters of Republican front-runner Donald Trump are fixated on the idea of Obama replacing Joe Biden, in an attempt to diminish the president’s political viability and stir up the Republican base.
In a statement to NBC News, the former first lady’s office tried to rein in imaginations on the right and the left, making it clear her 2024 plans don’t include running for office.
“As former First Lady Michelle Obama has expressed several times over the years, she will not be running for president,” said Crystal Carson, director of communications for her office. “Mrs. Obama supports President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ re-election campaign.”
According to people with knowledge of the conversations, she plans to support the Biden campaign again this autumn, just as she did four years prior. However, just like her husband, her engagement is probably going to be somewhat restricted in 2020 due to her other obligations and her enduring reluctance to return to the political scene on a full-time basis, the sources added.
Many close to Biden anticipate that the Biden campaign will try to make the most of her small presence later in the campaign, when more swing voters will be following the race, because of the former first lady’s star power.
A senior Biden adviser said there have been early conversations with Obama’s team about campaign engagements and noted that an obvious area of “alignment” with her is her nonpartisan voter registration group, When We All Vote, which aims to promote turnout and close the registration gap among young voters and people of color.
“President and Michelle Obama were enormously helpful in the fight to beat Donald Trump and elect President Biden and Vice President Harris the first time and we are grateful to have their voice and their support in the fight for the fate of our democracy this November,” Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said in a statement.
An aide to Obama pointed to her discussion last year with Oprah Winfrey to reflect her thinking still today — and why she would most likely never appear on a ballot herself.
“Politics is hard,” she said in the Netflix special. “And the people who get into it … you’ve got to want it. It’s got to be in your soul, because it is so important. It is not in my soul.”
In a 2022 BBC interview, she also said she “detests” questions about running for president.
But in at least one instance, the former first lady appeared not to want the idea of her holding public office ruled out entirely.
