Michelle Obama not running for president
WASHINGTON - Former President Barack Obama has said he’s ‘all in’ for President Joe Biden’s re-election effort. But a question nagging at many Democrats is what role his popular spouse might play.
Democrats nervously looking ahead to November say they want to see Michelle Obama playing a bigger role in the campaign. Some even whisper about the possibility that she might replace a politically hobbled incumbent on the 2024 ticket this summer - making her a fantasy candidate for members of both parties, albeit for different reasons.
Supporters of Republican front-runner Donald Trump have fixated on the notion of Obama’s swooping in to replace Biden in attempt to diminish the president’s political viability and stoke the GOP 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.”
Sources familiar with the discussions say she intends to assist the Biden campaign this fall, as she did four years ago. But as in 2020, her engagement is likely to be fairly limited compared to that of her husband, reflecting both her other commitments and her long-standing reluctance to re-enter the political fray full time, the sources said.
The expectation of many close to Biden is that, given the former first lady’s star power, the Biden campaign will seek to maximise her limited role later in the campaign, when more swing voters will be paying attention to the race. 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 colour.