Obama, 96% Fav With Dems, Casts Shadow Over 2028 Race
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- Obama holds a 96% favorability rating among Democrats in a June 2026 CNN poll — compared to just 71% for Biden — while a separate UMass Lowell/YouGov poll found him more popular than Taylor Swift.
- Top potential 2028 candidates including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff all traveled to Chicago on June 19 for the Obama Presidential Center opening, with Newsom telling reporters he 'literally started tearing up' on the tour.
- Obama described his post-presidential shift as moving from 'player to coach' in an ABC News interview, telling the New Yorker his 'highest and best use now is to help find the next set of leaders who are going to move us forward.'
- Obama has shaped every Democratic nominee since leaving office — backing Clinton in 2016, pushing party consolidation behind Biden in 2020, and participating in the 2024 effort to convince Biden to end his reelection campaign after his debate performance.
- Obama is working the phones with Democrats on AI policy that avoids a 'knee-jerk "Screw the billionaires in tech"' stance, warning the New Yorker that without an agenda, 'populist impulses can go in all kinds of stray directions.'
- Obama has appeared alongside rising Democratic stars New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, while also producing an HBO Larry David sketch series for America's 250th anniversary to stay culturally relevant.
- Obama's memoir 'A Promised Land' ends not with his first term but with Trump's rise via the birther conspiracy, closing with the 2011 bin Laden raid and his White House Correspondents' Dinner takedown of a then-celebrity Trump sitting in the audience.
Why it matters: The Democratic Party's 2028 nominee will likely emerge from a field of aspirants who all trekked to the Obama Presidential Center opening on June 19. With Obama quietly shaping AI policy and elevating figures like Mamdani, his backing could become the most valuable endorsement in the primary — making his self-described 'coach' role functionally indistinguishable from kingmaker.
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