Former US President Barack Obama will be travelling to the battleground states for Kamala Harris. He will begin his tour from the state of Pennsylvania next week, US media reported.
Obama will hold his first event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania next Thursday, kicking off a blitz through several “Rust Belt” and “Sun Belt” states that are likely to decide the outcome of the 2024 election.
Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania are the seven states that will hold elections this cycle. According to the latest RealClearPolitics polling average, Harris, 59, and Trump, 78, are separated by less than 2 percentage points in each of those states.
Obama, 63, reportedly played a leading role in a behind-the-scenes pressure campaign to get President Joe Biden to end his reelection campaign. He will appear in the state after Republican nominee Donald Trump returns Saturday to Butler, the Pennsylvania town where he was assassinated in July.
Obama remains one of the Democrats’ most influential surrogates, second perhaps only to his wife Michelle Obama. His return to the campaign trail followed a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, in which he introduced Harris as a promising figure and the natural heir to his diverse, youth-based political coalition. He said at the convention in August:
We don’t need four more years of shouting, bumbling and chaos. We’ve seen this film before, and we all know that sequels are usually even worse. America is ready for a new chapter.
Harris was one of Obama’s earliest supporters when he began running against Hillary Clinton in 2007.
Obama “still running the country”
The former president’s half-brother, Abon’go Malik Obama, said in an interview with The Post earlier this week that he believes Barack is “still running the country” – and will play a ”big role” if Harris wins in November.
The Harris campaign already has several former Obama campaign staffers on board, including strategist David Plouffe, Stephanie Cutter, who was Obama’s deputy campaign manager in 2012, and Mitch Stewart, Obama’s outreach strategist during both campaigns. Stewart is an adviser to Harris on battleground states, among them Pennsylvania – a must-win for either side.
The key to victory in Pennsylvania could be winning the Latino vote. About 90,000 Latino voters are still undecided, according to University of Pennsylvania professor A.C. Sandoval-Strausz, writing in Conversation. He argues that Harris’ endorsement of Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny could have a bigger impact on the election than Taylor Swift’s endorsement. In 2020, Biden won that state by 80,000 votes – just one point. In 2016, Trump won the state by just 44,292 votes.
Earlier, Elon Musk expressed the opinion that the victory of the Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris in the US presidential election will be a cruel and unusual punishment for the country. The billionaire emphasised that Trump should return to the White House.
