Former US first lady Michelle Obama is likely to be under pressure from donors and top political operatives to consider entering the 2024 presidential race despite her opposition to the idea, political experts have said, after a poll showed she could hypothetically beat Donald Trump.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll has revealed that Trump and Joe Biden remain tied on 40 per cent of support among registered voters after last Thursday’s debate, suggesting the US President has not substantially lost ground since a performance against Trump in which he appeared distracted and lost his train of thought.
Among top Democrats, only Mrs Obama – wife of former president Barack Obama – outperformed Mr Biden and led Trump, at 50 per cent to 39 per cent in a potential race.
She beat other potential contenders such as Vice President Kamala Harris, who trailed Trump by one percentage point in the recent poll, 42 per cent to 43 per cent. However this performance, within the margin of error, makes Ms Harris’s chance as strong as Mr Biden’s, statistically.
Rising Democratic star and California Governor Gavin Newsom performed marginally worse, trailing Trump 39 per cent to 42 per cent. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer sat behind Trump 36 per cent to 41 per cent, while Illinois Governor JB Pritzker had 34 per cent support compared to Trump’s 40 per cent.
Mrs Obama also won in the favourability stakes according to the poll, with a 55 per cent rating putting her ahead of Mr Biden, Trump and Ms Harris on 40 per cent.
The 60-year-old lawyer and activist has consistently stated she is not interested in running for president. Yet Scott Lucas, professor of US politics at University College Dublin, said behind the scenes, senior Democrats will be considering their options.
“At this point I think you would at least consider whether Michelle Obama would at least consider getting into politics,” he told i.
“She’s very capable, very intelligent, very thoughtful and a decent person. Her speech in October 2016 [in which she said] ‘when they go low, we go high’ was one of the high points in American politics.
“But she has shown no sign of wanting to go into politics. In fact, she’s rejected it in the past.”
It comes as Mr Biden is facing growing doubts about his fitness to serve as the Democratic candidate following last week’s debate.
The President and other top Democrats including Ms Harris have vowed to carry on campaigning, however the 81-year-old is under mounting pressure to step aside.
US Representative Lloyd Doggett became the first Democrat in Congress to call for Mr Biden to withdraw from the race this week, saying on Tuesday that he hoped other Democrats would follow his lead.
The President blamed his performance on jet lag and said that he “fell asleep on stage” after he “wasn’t very smart” and “decided to travel around the world a couple of times” in the days leading up to it.
More than half of Americans polled said Mr Biden should drop out of the race following the debate, while just under half said Trump should drop out.
Yet Mr Biden’s performance has presented Democrats with a dilemma with just five months to go until election day, as none of their other elected officials have the name recognition and clout among voters to mount a challenge to Trump, 78.
Nadia Hilliard, lecturer of United States Studies at UCL’s Institute of the Americas, agreed Mrs Obama is probably being urged to at least consider it by top political donors and strategists.
Dr Hilliard said Mrs Obama’s appeal – like her husband’s – lies in her “incredible capacity” to “know exactly what people want to see”.
“On the one hand I think she’s a very progressive woman but she did this amazing job of being both a progressive woman who also likes to be a supportive wife,” she said. “It’s a kind of genius.”
She said Mrs Obama had proved to be a different type of “political wife” than Hillary Clinton, and part of her appeal is that she has focussed on non-partisan issues and is seen as above the political fray.
“She was very, very wise to notice that that really did not go down well for Hillary,” Dr Hilliard said, adding that the chances of her deciding to run were “very, very low”.
“She has not publicly expressed much desire to pursue any political ambitions. If you take her memoirs at face value, she found her husband’s ambitions really quite frustrating. Especially trying to raise two daughters.”
While the campaigner and author has previously been seen as a “fantasy” candidate for Democrats, she has repeatedly said she does not intend to run for president, including in March this year.
“As former first lady, Michelle Obama has expressed several times over the years, she will not be running for president,” said Crystal Carson, director of communications for her office.
“Mrs Obama supports President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s re-election campaign.”
The former first lady proved popular throughout her time in the White House, advocating for healthy families, service people and their families and education for girls. She has largely kept out of the political spotlight since, but is still expected to play a limited role in lending her support to the Biden-Harris ticket closer to election day.
Since leaving politics, Mrs Obama publicly expressed her “depression” at seeing polarisation in the US following Covid and wondered if her husband’s presidency had any impact. In April 2023 she told Oprah in her Netflix interview special, The Light We Carry, that she “never expressed any interest in politics. Ever”.
“I agreed to support my husband. He wanted to do it, and he was great at it. But at no point have I ever said, ‘I think I want to run.’ Ever. So, I’m just wondering: Does what I want have anything to do with anything? Does who I choose to be have anything to do with it?” she said.
“Politics is hard. And the people who get into it — it’s just like marriage, it’s just like kids — you’ve got to want it. It’s got to be in your soul, because it is so important. It is not in my soul. Service is in my soul. Helping people is in my soul. Working with kids? I will spend my lifetime trying to make kids feel seen and find their light. That I will do. I don’t have to hold office to do that.
“In fact, I think I’m actually more effective outside of politics, because sadly, politics has become so divided. The minute you declare a party, you’ve alienated the other half of the country. Now, maybe some people who don’t agree with me politically can still gain some tools that can help them. Maybe I can help a kid who’s a Republican, because maybe they’ll listen to me.”
With input from agencies