(Headline USA) Former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are set to join current President Joe Biden at a March fundraiser for his reelection bid as Biden struggles to drum up enthusiasm for his campaign.
“Folks – I’ll be in NYC on March 28th to support @JoeBiden. Who’s coming with me? Chip in for your chance to join,” Obama tweeted on Tuesday.
Folks – I’ll be in NYC on March 28th to support @JoeBiden. Who’s coming with me? Chip in for your chance to join: https://t.co/oHcvESvsga
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 6, 2024
Clinton replied to Obama’s post, saying, “Count we in. Who else is going to be there?”
The person overseeing Biden’s account then replied to both, writing, “You guys know you can just call me next time, right?”
The presence of the two former Democrat presidents is expected to help boost Biden’s fundraising. His campaign entered 2024 with $117 million on hand, but former President Donald Trump continues to lead him across the polls, including in key battleground states.
Biden, 81, is also suffering from a dearth of enthusiasm for his campaign. Most Americans believe he is too old to seek a second term, and those voters who plan to support him anyway plan to do so only to prevent Trump from winning.
“It’s not going to be [Biden] energizing the base,” said Cliff Albright, executive director of Black Voters Matter Fund, in an interview last April with Politico.
“It’s obviously going to have to be surrogates to do the energizing part, but he’s got some achievements, including some that influence black folks directly that he can craft a message around,” Albright added.
Although many in the black community remain unquestioningly loyal to the Democratic Party, Trump has succeeded in chipping away at the longtime voting bloc.
Recent surveys indicate that roughly 25% of black voters support the GOP frontrunner—which could sway the election outcome enormously in major cities that helped deliver the 2020 race to Biden.
In South Carolina, a group of black male voters explained to MSNBC why they’d rather support Trump.
“A lot of my friends—we’ve only voted once, and Trump is kind of all we know, Trump and Biden,” said voter Kinard Givens.
“And they’re like, ‘Well, we were broke with Biden. We weren’t with Trump,’” Givens continued. “And that’s kind of the only thing that I’m hearing over and over again is that ‘with Trump, we had money.’”
The announcement of the joint campaign appearance came in spite of growing speculation that Biden may soon be replaced on the campaign trail—with the most likely candidate being former first lady Michelle Obama.
If the bait-and-switch operation were done with Biden’s blessing, he would be able to transfer his campaign warchest in its entirety, provided there were no outstanding debts, according to the Federal Election Commission.
