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 maximize 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 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.
Amid speculation about Biden’s potential running mate in the summer of 2020, CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota suggested in an interview with Jill Biden: “Maybe former first lady Michelle Obama?”
Jill Biden laughed. “You know, I’d love it if Michelle would agree to it. But I — you know, I think she’s had it with politics. I don’t know. She’s so good at everything she does. That would — that would be wonderful,” she said.
People close to Obama weren’t happy that Jill Biden foreclosed the option and wanted her to give a different answer if she is asked a similar question in the future, according to two people familiar with the matter. An ally of the former first lady called top Biden campaign adviser Anita Dunn, sharing the view that it wasn’t the right response, these people said.