The campaign trail will get a familiar face next week, as former President Barack Obama begins rallying through swing states on behalf of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Harris–Walz camp says that the 44th president will be traveling nationwide for the final 27 days of the election cycle as Harris battles former President Donald Trump in a tight election race. RealClear’s national polling average currently has Harris up by 2.2 percentage points.
Obama and Harris have been friends for 20 years, dating back to his successful run as a senator for Illinois in 2004. He had made his first splash in the national spotlight that same year as the keynote speaker of the Democratic National Convention.
It was only four years later, in 2008, that Obama accepted his party’s nomination for president and went on to become the first minority to hold the office. Harris had been knocking on doors for him in the Iowa Caucus that year.
President Joe Biden, who was Obama’s vice president for two terms, was planning on facing Trump in November’s election, but after what was widely viewed as a poor debate performance on June 27, the pressure for Biden to step down from the presidential race intensified in his own party.
In what will be remembered as a historic nine days, Trump survived an assassination attempt on live television, the Republican National Convention formally nominated him and his running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), and Biden announced on X that he was dropping out of the race, endorsing Harris.
By the time Biden stepped aside, every single presidential primary had already taken place, leaving the Democratic Party in uncharted territory. The last time something remotely similar to this happened was in 1968, when President Lyndon B. Johnson had decided—after only the New Hampshire primary had taken place—that he would not seek reelection.
Obama and his wife, former First Lady Michelle Obama, officially endorsed Harris on July 26 in a video released by her campaign. Harris was formally nominated at her party’s convention the following month.
Harris has never received any votes in any presidential primary contests. She dropped out of the 2020 race in December 2019, two months before the first votes were cast in the presidential primary that eventually led to Biden becoming the Democratic nominee.
Obama will begin campaigning on Oct. 10 in Pittsburgh.