October 10, 2024
Former President Barack Obama will headline a rally on Thursday, October 10, in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, as Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign seeks to use one of her party’s most popular politicians to mobilize the Democratic base, reports The New York Times.
Unleashing Obama is a sign that Harris is moving her campaign into its highest gear with Election Day less than a month away and the presidential race exceedingly close. This week, her operation is turning its focus from fund-raising and defining her message to getting out the vote as quickly as possible.
Obama’s rally on Thursday in Pittsburgh kick-starts that effort. And he is expected to continue rallying Democrats to the polls in several more battleground state events in the coming weeks.
“You bring in someone like Barack Obama to inspire people, to encourage them to participate, and to set the stakes and urge them to vote,” said David Axelrod, a former top strategist for Mr. Obama. “There’s no one better.”
Encouraging early voting is a key campaign strategy. As more Democrats cast their ballots early, it becomes easier for the Harris campaign to find and turn out the voters who are harder to reach.
Early voting has already begun in Pennsylvania, which Harris must almost certainly win to defeat former President Donald Trump. She holds a narrow lead in the polls there, having overcome the significant deficit she inherited from President Biden. Democrats are hoping for high voter turnout in the state’s biggest cities, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
But there are some worrying signs: Harris’s support among Black voters, for instance, is still lower than what Biden received when he won the state in 2020, according to a poll last month from The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Siena College.
Black men in particular have been a weak point for Harris, and the vocal support of Obama, the first Black president, could help her there.
“He’s the biggest gun that Democrats have in their arsenal,” said Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster who worked on Obama’s presidential campaigns. “And here at the close, you’ve got to use the biggest gun you’ve got.”
“They’ve got to release the kraken,” said James Carville, a veteran Democratic strategist—adding that the Harris campaign should be using Obama and other high-profile surrogates more aggressively. “He’s got, obviously, tremendous appeal to Black voters. He has tremendous appeal to suburban whites, which is another big part of the coalition. And he drives Trump nuts.”
Only Michelle Obama polls similarly well. The Harris campaign has not yet said if the former first lady will hit the trail in the last weeks of the election. Many Democrats saw Mrs. Obama’s speech as one of the sharpest at their national convention this summer, but she has long been reluctant to spend much time on the campaign trail.
The pivot by the campaign toward exhortations to vote comes as it adopts a far more aggressive media outreach strategy. This week, Harris appeared on CBS’s “60 Minutes” and on the podcast “Call Her Daddy”—and sat down for friendly discussions with Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert, and the hosts of ABC’s “The View.”
Harris also has begun incorporating directives for supporters to not wait to return their ballots. Last Friday in Flint, Michigan, she reminded the audience that nearly two million voters in the state had already received their absentee ballots.
“If you have received your ballot, please do not wait,” she said. “Fill it out and return it today. Early voting starts statewide on October 26, and now is the time to make your plan to vote because, folks, the election is here.”
Research contact: @nytimes
