Donald Trump and Kamala Harris' race to the White House is coming down to the wire. With fewer than three weeks to go until Election Day, those who want to see Harris win the White House are pushing the gas pedal to the floor. Former presidents have hit the campaign trail—and one centenarian has already voted early. Celebrities from Taylor Swift to Cardi B, George Clooney to Howard Stern have offered full-throated endorsements. Current and former Republicans, including former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney and her dad, former Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as former Trump administration members have also rejected their former boss and party leader—who they say is dangerous—and publicly backed Harris.
But as Harris and her running mate Tim Walz careen through various battleground states, one of the most valuable Democratic voices has largely been missing from the trail: Former First Lady Michelle Obama.
To be clear, Michelle hasn’t gone totally MIA. She gave one of the best speeches at the Democratic National Convention in August, where her very presence was a reminder of a more optimistic time in America—an era when politics were certainly ugly, but when many of us still felt hopeful, and hungry for change that really did seem to be in motion. She’s publicly endorsed the Harris/Walz ticket and has also been reportedly working with the campaign behind the scenes. She has used her social media platforms to cheer Harris on, and implored her followers “to roll up their sleeves and DO SOMETHING… Every vote will matter in what will be a close race.”
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And she just announced a non-partisan get-out-the-vote rally to be held in Atlanta a week before election day—an event which her team, thankfully, says won’t be her only pre-election appearance.
This rally is an important one. Democratic voters in Georgia, and Black Democratic voters in particular, have turned the once-red state into a real battleground, and in recent years secured important Democratic wins. But Democrats don’t just need people to vote; they need people to vote for Kamala Harris. And on that front, Michelle Obama could be an incredible advocate. She remains the world’s third-most popular public figure, behind Queen Elizabeth and Martin Luther King Jr., at least according to a YouGov poll that I suspect is slightly less than scientific.
Still, she’s especially beloved by Black women, suburban women, Millennial women, women who care about reproductive rights—I could go on. She may not be persuading conservatives (she couldn’t even encourage kids to eat vegetables and exercise without triggering unhinged right wing backlash, after all) but she may certainly be able to rally the troops. Her encouragement could mean the difference between these citizens posting their support on Instagram and actually getting themselves to the polls.
There are a lot of reasons why Michelle hasn’t been on the campaign trail. She didn’t ask for a life in the spotlight; she notoriously dislikes the ugly brawling of partisan politics. She is also reportedly worried about security after two assassination attempts on Donald Trump, as well as last year’s arrest of an armed, wanted man who had participated in the Jan. 6 riots and later showed up with explosive materials near her home.
And Michelle is not a politician. She doesn’t owe the public or the Harris campaign anything. But I still wish she would. Because as a wise woman—Michelle Obama—once said: “This is up to us, all of us, to be the solution that we seek. It’s up to all of us to be the antidote to the darkness and division.”
It’s obvious why the former First Lady remains so influential. She is inspiring and charismatic, a woman who manages to thread a usually-impossible needle of coming across as genuine, warm, and kind while also being clearly intelligent, drop-dead gorgeous and enviably stylish. (Can you tell I’m a fan?) Even though she generally stays out of the political fray, she’s a remarkably compelling and persuasive figure when she jumps in—in part because she chooses her public moments carefully.
This should be one of them.
Harris is struggling more than her recent predecessors with some crucial segments of the Democratic base, most notably Black and Hispanic voters. Much has been made about the defections of Black men to the GOP, and that’s a real dynamic: 86% of Black men and 93% of Black women voted for Barack Obama in 2012; in 2020, 79% of Black men and 90% of Black women backed Joe Biden. This year, Harris’s support from Black men has dipped to 70%, and her support from Black women to 83%.
To be clear, Black voters remain the most consistently Democratic voters in the country. Enthusiasm may have waned, especially among Black men, but even 70% support is pretty good. (For comparison, 70% of white men without college degrees also voted for Trump in 2020, and are now widely seen as the most deeply loyal of MAGA voters). That said, defections and decreased enthusiasm among such a core part of the party’s base is a worrying trend. Depressed turnout, let alone a rise in Black voters backing Trump, could very well tank Harris.
There are real downsides for the Obamas here, and particularly for Michelle, who doesn’t have the same kind of obligations as her husband. Both Obamas spent their years in the White House being subjected to a torrential downpour of racism, but the hate aimed at Michelle also came with a piping side of misogyny.
But there are downsides for the whole country if Trump wins a second term. Michelle Obama may be able to play an even bigger role in preventing that from happening. I hope she does what she so often has: Steps up, and uses her power for good.
