Obama's influence shadows Democrats' race to 2028
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo / Axios. Photo: Win McNamee / Getty Images
The Democratic Party is divided. But almost all Democratic voters still agree on one thing: They really like Barack Obama.
Why it matters: Obama remains the most powerful and popular Democrat in America, with the ability to play kingmaker in the presidential election — if he chooses to.
Driving the news: Obama's de facto leadership of the party has been on full display the past month.
- Most of the top Democrats eyeing runs for the White House in 2028, along with several up-and-coming leaders in the party, made the pilgrimage to Chicago on June 19 to celebrate the new Obama Presidential Center, where they waxed nostalgically about his presidency.
- California Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters that he "literally started tearing up" as he toured the center.
A June CNN poll found that 96% of Democrats have a favorable view of Obama. (Only 71% of Democrats said the same of Joe Biden.)
- A University of Massachusetts Lowell/YouGov poll had Obama more popular than pop star Taylor Swift.
- Several Democrats in tough primary races — including people who at times have had fraught relationships with Obama, such as Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz — regularly feature him in their ads, videos and website messages.
- Some prominent Democrats such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff even occasionally sound like Obama in their speaking cadence, with a building crescendo to an aspirational message.
Between the lines: Obama is actively working to navigate the Democratic Party out of the Trump era, but prefers to exert his influence behind the scenes.
- "What I've tried to do is to move from player to coach," he told ABC News last month. He frequently is a sounding board for potential 2028 candidates, as he was in the run-up to the 2020 election.
- "I strongly believe that my highest and best use now is to help find the next set of leaders who are going to move us forward," he told the New Yorker. He added that "the very best leaders can tap into the zeitgeist of the moment."
- As part of that effort, he recently appeared with young, rising stars, including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Texas Senate candidate James Talarico.
Obama also often subtly weighs in on tactics and policies when he thinks Democrats aren't moving in the right direction.
- He's been hitting the phones to help come up with an artificial intelligence policy that's not "simply a knee-jerk 'Screw the billionaires in tech,' because the genie's out of the bottle," he told the New Yorker.
- "If we do not have an agenda for that, then I think some of the populist impulses that have been there already can go in all kinds of stray directions," he said.
Flashback: Obama has been a critical figure in determining each Democratic nominee since his presidency.
- In 2016, his clear preference for Hillary Clinton to be his successor made it difficult for him to unite the party after the divisive primary — which ultimately hurt Clinton in the general election.
- In 2020, Obama was less overt but still worked behind the scenes to push the party to consolidate behind Biden.
- And in 2024, Obama was part of the establishment's effort to get Biden to end his reelection campaign after his disastrous debate performance against Trump.
- A spokesperson for Obama declined to comment.
Zoom out: Obama also believes that culture affects politics more than politics affects culture, so he's stayed relevant outside of politics.
- For the United States' 250th anniversary, Obama produced an HBO series — a Larry David–led sketch comedy show set during pivotal moments in American history — that begins with the former president talking about his vision for America. He'll appear in one of the sketches, Variety reported.
- Obama also sat courtside at the NBA's All-Star game this year and filmed a video with Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards. After the game, Edwards — who was 15 when Obama left office — said the former president was his "favorite person in the world."
Bottom line: Obama knows that what happens in 2028 affects not just the country and the Democratic Party, but also his own legacy.
- He's seemed unsure how to interpret his presidency being followed by Trump — a man his opposite in so many ways.
That dynamic is reflected in how Obama approached his presidential memoir.
- Instead of one memoir, as most recent presidents have done, Obama divided his book into two parts.
- The first part — published after the 2020 election, "A Promised Land" — doesn't end with Obama's first term, but rather the emergence of Trump on the political scene by peddling the racist birther conspiracy theory about Obama.
- The final chapter includes the weekend in 2011 when Obama oversaw the operation to kill Osama bin Laden after skewering Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner with the future president in attendance.
- Trump "was a spectacle, and in the United States of America in 2011, that was a form of power," Obama wrote. "Far from being ostracized for the conspiracies he'd peddled, he in fact had never been bigger."
