Barack Obama is planning to endorse his former vice-president, Joe Biden, for president, coming off the electoral sidelines to help unite the party after a contentious Democratic primary.
Obama is expected to announce his support in a video on Tuesday, according to a source close to the former president.
The endorsement comes one day after Biden’s former Democratic rival Bernie Sanders threw his weight behind him and appealed to progressives to unify against Donald Trump.
Obama declined to play a public role in the primary, preferring instead to use his goodwill within the party to help bridge the ideological divide when the fight was over. Sanders’ departure from the race last week effectively ended the Democratic primary race, and made Biden the presumptive nominee.
The former president remains incredibly popular among Democrats. But emphasizing America’s deep partisan divides Obama last year only tied with Trump as the man Americans admired most.
In 2008, Obama assembled a broad coalition of African Americans, suburban women, white working-class voters and, crucially, young people, in what many Democrats remember as one of the most inspirational political campaigns in modern history. Biden has drawn support from similar constituencies but is missing a key part of that coalition: young people who remain deeply skeptical of his candidacy.
To the dismay of some Democrats, Obama has mostly continued the tradition of former presidents to not criticize their successor in the White House, even as Trump has almost methodically dismantled his legacy on everything from health care to climate change. Even now, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has sought to deflect criticism of the administration’s response by blaming his predecessor.
Biden’s campaign has tied himself closely to Obama, running as a continuation of his legacy. But many of the young and progressive voters Biden must appeal to were too young to vote for Obama and are often critical of his achievements.
Healthcare was a particular flashpoint during the primary, with candidates ideologically divided between expanding the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature legislative achievement, or overhauling the current system with a proposal that guarantees universal coverage.
Source: Elections - theguardian.com
