Barack Obama Looks Left

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The Democratic Party needs Abdul El-Sayed, but it doesn’t necessarily love him.

Although few top Democrats have expressed public misgivings about El-Sayed, the leftist candidate for U.S.

Senate in Michigan who defeated an establishment candidate in an August primary, most of them aren’t overflowing with enthusiasm either.

This hesitation is one reason yesterday’s news that former President Obama will campaign with El-Sayed and other Michigan Democrats later this month is notable.

Seeing why El-Sayed would want Obama’s imprimatur is easy: He’s by far the most popular politician in America, and he won Michigan in both of his presidential races—once by more than 16 percentage points and another by nearly 10, over a native Michigander. (More unexpected is El-Sayed’s welcome for Kamala Harris, who is unpopular with leftists, lost Michigan in 2024, and has gotten a stiff arm from some Democratic candidates this cycle.) Obama’s incentives are more interesting.

He is in an awkward phase of his career—no longer young enough to be cool but still too young to be an elder statesman.

Nonetheless, with Bill Clinton and Joe Biden both aging and somewhat tarnished, no other figure can match Obama’s stature.

He has become, as Politico put it today , the Democratic Party’s “closer-in-chief.” In that role, he’s been more willing to back left-wing candidates than other establishment figures have.

Last year, many high-profile Democrats were wary of the New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani—either because they were skeptical of his policy stances or because of their long-standing ties to the family of his leading opponent, Andrew Cuomo.

But Obama privately called him , praised his campaign, and offered to be a “sounding board” should Mamdani want advice. (Obama did not formally endorse Mamdani, though The New York Times , which first reported the call, noted that he prefers not to intervene in municipal races.) And in 2018, Obama endorsed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for U.S.

House.

He did so only after she’d won a primary in a safe district, so the outcome was a foregone conclusion, but given her anti-establishment campaign, he seemed to be sending a message —or placing a bet on future success. (Obama also privately called El-Sayed after his primary victory.) Obama’s engagement with leftist candidates stands in contrast with most of his statements on leftist politics.