Former President Barack Obama has actively joined the campaign trail in the crucial final days leading up to the midterm elections, delivering a series of sharp speeches designed to boost Democratic candidates in key races and directly challenge former President Donald Trump. This strategic deployment has resonated positively, particularly with the progressive faction of the Democratic party.
Addressing a rally in Detroit, Michigan, while campaigning for Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, Obama acknowledged that El-Sayed had previously criticized aspects of his own presidency. “Yeah, Abdul didn’t agree with some things we wanted to do – that our administration was doing – when I was president,” Obama told the crowd. He then lightened the moment, adding, “You know who else doesn’t agree with everything I do? Michelle Obama.” The remark drew laughter, with Obama quipping, “I’d say about five times a day, she says, ‘You knucklehead. Why you do that?’” This interaction highlighted an effort to bridge generational divides within the Democratic party, especially as anti-incumbent sentiment is prominent in the current election cycle, with some candidates distancing themselves from established party labels.
Despite leaving office nearly a decade ago, the 65-year-old former president has been called upon by Democrats who, with days remaining before elections that will determine the balance of power in Congress for the remainder of Donald Trump’s second term, are turning to their most formidable orator. In suburban Atlanta, Georgia, crowds revived the familiar chant of “Yes, we can!”, echoing Obama’s 2008 campaign. America’s first Black president has used these platforms to fiercely criticize Trump, mocking his “autocratic pretensions” and deriding his “foreign policy misadventures in the Middle East.” In Georgia, Obama emphasized the stakes, stating, “This election is our last, best chance of at least reining him in, reining in some of the foolishness of this administration. It’s the circuit-breaker in the system, and we need to flip it.”
Party strategists viewed the decision to deploy Obama in the campaign’s closing stretch as a calculated risk. Unlike Trump, who has spent weeks holding grievance-filled rallies in traditional Republican strongholds, Obama maintained a selective public profile until the final weeks. This approach allowed a new generation of Democratic candidates to establish their own identities before Obama delivered a late surge of star power. David Litt, a former Obama White House speechwriter, explained, “What you’re seeing is him coming in to support a new generation of Democratic leaders who have emerged organically, rather than trying to be involved from day one. He still has both a credibility and an ability to drive turnout that, if you’re a candidate in a close race, you can absolutely benefit from – especially among young voters and Black voters.”
Litt also noted Obama’s unique ability in modern US politics to command attention and, crucially, to unnerve his successor. “Obama is good at getting attention, and attention is hard to get these days,” Litt said. “The other thing is he continues to live in Trump’s head rent-free. Donald Trump is out there on the stump, and in theory, he should be talking about his accomplishments. Instead he’s relitigating his decisions involving ballroom renovations, because he can’t help but get triggered by a single sentence from a former president.”
That particular sentence, delivered by Obama at a rally in Cleveland, Ohio, suggested that Trump’s gold-encrusted White House renovations made it look as if “Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.” Trump responded by waving his arms to mimic a lettuce leaf, accusing Obama of snobbery, and declaring, “Every piece of lettuce he eats has to be perfect, and I’m not that choosy.” He defended his gilded decor and claimed Obama had left the executive mansion “deteriorated.” Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, a wealthy former hedge fund manager, even staged a photo-op outside a Cheesecake Factory in Washington, ordering a french-dip cheeseburger and urging “the Martha’s Vineyard set” to sample the chain’s extensive menu, in an apparent attempt to counter accusations of elitism.
To Obama, the ensuing outrage merely validated his point. Speaking in Atlanta, he observed, “They mobilised a whole-of-government response to a joke, not to inflation, but to a joke. They don’t have solutions to actual problems, so they’d rather have the media and you talking about the Cheesecake Factory.” Litt highlighted the perceived double standard in the Republican reaction: “This is a party that spent years complaining, ‘Oh, you’re not allowed to say anything offensive any more,’” he said. “It turns out all these people who would die on the hill of allowing someone to use offensive language suddenly think [the] Cheesecake Factory is a line you just can’t cross.”
Corbin Trent, a media strategist and former communications director for Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, dismissed Republican efforts to portray Obama’s remarks as elite condescension. From rural east Tennessee, Trent stated, “They thought they were going to do this liberal elite stuff. I live in rural America. You’ve got this guy, Donald Trump, who presents himself like a mafioso, running our country like a mob – how can he enrich himself? There’s no accountability. You’re reminded of it every time you go to the grocery store, fill up your gas tank, turn on the TV and see that we’re bombing more places.”
While former Vice-President Kamala Harris has also been mobilized for the midterm effort and ex-President Bill Clinton campaigned with David Jolly, who is running for governor of Florida, Obama has maintained an unusually active role in presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial elections since leaving the White House. Notably, he backed Harris in the final stretch of the 2024 presidential race, which Trump ultimately won. When Obama opened his presidential center in Chicago in June, all living former presidents attended, with the exception of Trump.
Within the broader Democratic coalition, Obama’s legacy remains complex. For a younger generation of activists who emerged during Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns and the growth of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Obama is remembered as much for his institutional constraints and moderate compromises as for his inspirational rhetoric. Norman Solomon, co-founder of the progressive group RootsAction, likened it to an oil painting: “If you walk up to it and look real close, it’s not going to look so great.” He cited Obama’s record on “the collapse on peacemaking in Palestine, tripling troops in Afghanistan, presiding over the greatest upward transfer of wealth in anybody’s lifetime,” and his post-presidency vacation on private islands owned by Sir Richard Branson in 2017 as examples that “does not look so great” and is “not solidarity.”
However, Solomon acknowledged Obama’s undeniable tactical value in the immediate 2026 crisis. “Almost anybody is going to look great compared to Trump,” he said, adding that in Michigan, where there has been resentment between African American and Arab American communities, “it’s helpful for Obama to present a wiser outlook on what’s at stake.”
Other progressives welcome Obama’s return to the campaign trail, interpreting his involvement as a sign that the former president recognizes the party’s shift to the left, rather than a concession to the old guard. Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, a group that originated from Sanders’ 2016 campaign, stated, “Obama hitting the campaign trail is a net positive because it’s strategic. He helps pull in key demographics including African American voters.” Geevarghese continued, “But more broadly, I interpret Obama being on the campaign trail as a validation of the progressive movement’s momentum. He is the epitome of the establishment, and he is out there pounding the pavement for progressives, saying our agenda isn’t radical – it’s mainstream. It’s an affirmation of how powerful our movement has become.”
Geevarghese also highlighted Obama’s capacity to shield minority candidates from xenophobic attacks. “Obama represents a candidate who overcame the opposition’s ‘othering’ – when they called him un-American and used his middle name, Hussein,” he noted. “In the case of Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, who is weathering some of those same attacks, having Obama on the trail validates his candidacy and bolsters him within the American mainstream.”
Since 2016, the DSA has seen significant growth, expanding from 6,000 members to over 130,000 nationwide, achieving high-profile mayoral victories with figures like Zohran Mamdani in New York, and aiming to expand its congressional caucus. Ashik Siddique, co-chair of the DSA, commented, “Today, Obama appearing alongside progressive candidates shows where the decisive shift is happening. Voters want real results toward an alternative to the factors that produced Donald Trump. Barack Obama coming out and campaigning with candidates like Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan shows a recognition of where voters are.”
Despite varied critiques, Obama, much like Trump, remains a unique political figure, defying easy categorization, which continues to be a strength. Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator and prominent progressive voice, observed, “President Obama, because of his uniqueness, transcends the anti-establishment movement.” She added, “He is still an extraordinarily positive figure among the Democratic base.” Even among progressives who were disappointed with aspects of his presidency, such as the drone wars and the perceived lack of significant change despite promises of hope, Turner noted, “he still has ‘that thing.’ He’s a force.” Turner concluded, “The critique of President Obama is he was very much establishment: he ran on hope and change, but didn’t make a whole lot of change. People were hopeful, though, and it’s the hopeful portion of his candidacy that still looms large – even as people critique his presidency, particularly on the progressive side of the ledger. Overall him being out there will be good for Democrats of all generations.”
