Barack Obama is preparing to further boost Democrats ahead of midterm elections where Donald Trump’s plummeting ratings have already handed them a staggering advantage.
Obama’s team told Politico on Tuesday that the 65-year-old former president has contributed to ads for two dozen Senate and gubernatorial candidates across the country, which are expected to air in the coming days.
His aides added that his strategy ahead of the Nov. 3 polls “is driven by where he can move the needle with Democrats and persuadable voters, particularly in states with key races.”
The commercials come as Obama has ramped up on mentoring candidates across the country ahead of next month’s race for control of the House and Senate.
He has made public appearances to support Senate hopeful James Talarico and gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa in Texas, as well as Josh Turek in Iowa’s Senate race. His schedule for the coming weeks now includes further stumping in Michigan for Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and would-be governor Jocelyn Benson.
The former president has also thrown his weight behind the party’s House Campaign Committee, and plans to do the same for the Senate Campaign Committee on Wednesday.
Obama’s favorability rating of 57 percent makes him the most popular living president, a CNN poll found in May. Just under half of voters told NBC last month that his endorsement would make them more likely to vote for any given candidate.
By contrast, President Trump’s disastrous war of choice with Iran and rising unaffordability have now helped push his own approval ratings to just 32 points, the lowest of his political career so far and even two points below where they stood after the Jan. 6 riots at the tail end of his first term.
The nosedive has helped Democrats gain an astonishing 9-point lead on the generic congressional ballot as voters turn away from the GOP over Trump’s broken promises of no more foreign wars and a “golden age” for the U.S. economy.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
