Former President Barack Obama has not yet endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination, but allies in his inner circle have suggested the 44th president has his full support for Harris’ campaign.
President Biden endorsed Harris as his running mate shortly after withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race in a letter posted to his X account on Sunday afternoon. Democrats across the country quickly banded together to call for Harris to become the party’s nominee in a new campaign against former President Trump.
Democratic leaders including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the Clintons and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have voiced their support for Harris, but President Obama has remained silent.
“Michelle and I want to express our love and gratitude to Joe and Jill for leading us so able and courageously through these perilous times, and for their dedication to the ideals of freedom and equality on which this country was founded,” Obama said in a statement after Biden’s withdrawal, without mentioning Harris.
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Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Obama attend an event marking the passage of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 in the East Room of the White House on April 5, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)
Obama has mostly kept his endorsements to himself since leaving the Oval Office, endorsing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in June 2016 but only endorsed Biden in 2020 just days before the Democratic National Convention.
Obama was tight-lipped for a long time about who he would support during the 2020 election, saying he wouldn’t endorse anyone in the primaries, but after Democratic candidates including Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont dropped out of the primaries to make way for Biden, Obama finally endorsed the former vice president in August of that year.
Harris was also a candidate in the 2020 presidential election and had been a longtime friend of Obama before he ran for president in 2020, leading to speculation in the media that the 44th president might support her instead of the vice president.
Obama’s allies and advisers led the Democratic attack to undermine Biden ahead of the official announcement.
Harris was one of the first Democrats in the nation to endorse Obama’s first presidential bid in 2008, ignoring Hillary Clinton to back the then-Illinois senator.
President Obama greets California Attorney General Kamala Harris and California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom upon arriving at San Francisco International Airport on February 17, 2011. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“As the first person elected in California, I [Obama] “I was very surprised when I decided to run for president,” Harris said during the presidential campaign in 2019. “You have to remember, at that time Joe Biden was running against him.”
Harris first met Obama when he was running for the U.S. Senate as an Illinois senator in 2004, and was also present when he announced his presidential bid in 2007, The Washington Examiner previously reported.
“Barack Obama will be the president who finally ends the era of terror that has been used to divide and demoralize our country,” Harris said at the 2008 California Democratic Convention.
Harris has built a political career that has seen her serve as San Francisco district attorney, California attorney general, and then senator, and some political analysts have even called her a “female Obama.”
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Fast forward to Harris’ 2020 presidential run. While Obama’s inner circle rallied around Harris’ campaign, the 44th president remained silent. Communications executive Michael Kempner and his wife held a fundraiser for Harris in the Hamptons during Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign after raising millions for him, Politico reported at the time. Eugene Duffy, who served on Obama’s national finance committee in 2008, helped raise money for Harris during that campaign, as did Obama donor and supporter Jeff Shell, former CEO of NBCUniversal.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, DC, on July 26, 2021, as President Biden looks on. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
While Obama has again remained cautious about his support for the 2024 campaign, he has surrounded himself with some of his most powerful advisers and allies in Harris’ campaign. Harris has tapped Obama’s former Attorney General Eric Holder to lead her vetting of potential running mates, and the campaign has reportedly also reached out to longtime Obama adviser David Plouffe for a leadership position on the team. Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, who served as deputy campaign manager for Obama in 2012 and chair of Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign, was announced as Harris’ campaign manager.
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Before Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday afternoon, Obama’s allies led a campaign calling on Biden to withdraw from the race and field a candidate they believe is better suited to take on Trump.
Vice President Kamala Harris is traveling around the country on her Economic Opportunity Tour. (Lee Vogel/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Obama’s former campaign strategist David Axelrod Earlier this month, Biden declared that “I can’t win this election.” Just weeks after co-hosting a lavish campaign event for Biden with Obama in Los Angeles, Hollywood star George Clooney published a shocking op-ed calling on Biden to drop out of the race. Clooney has long been personal friends with Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, and has vacationed with the president and first lady in the past.
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Jon Favreau, another ally of Obama’s inner circle, is a former Speechwriting Director for President Obama Favreau also called on Biden to drop out of the race this month after attending a Los Angeles fundraiser with Clooney and Obama and saying he witnessed Biden’s mental state firsthand. Favreau, along with former Obama advisers Jon Lovett and Tommy Vieter, known as “the Obama Brothers” when they worked in the White House, spent much of this month’s episode of their podcast “Pod Save America” disparaging Biden.
“The Obama Brothers” and former advisers close to Obama praised Harris’ candidacy on social media.
With momentum building for Harris’ candidacy and the Democratic National Committee expected to certify her as the nominee on Aug. 1, Obama’s statement on Sunday echoed his previous stance of not being in a rush to tilt the political scales to favor one candidate over another.
Former President Barack Obama embraces Vice President Kamala Harris during an event marking the passage of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 in the East Room of the White House on April 5, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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“While we navigate uncharted waters ahead, I have extraordinary confidence that our party’s leadership can create a process that will produce excellent candidates,” Obama said in a statement Sunday. “I believe Joe Biden’s vision of a generous, prosperous and united America with opportunity for all will be on full display at the Democratic National Convention in August, and I look forward to each of us being prepared to carry that message of hope and progress into November and beyond.”
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