“I’m proud of you, I can’t help but tell you that. This will go down in history,” Obama said. „We called to say Michelle and I couldn’t be more proud to support you and do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office.Obama said afterwards. Harris thanked both for their friendship.
The announcement by the Democratic ex-president and former first lady ends days of speculation that Obama would not endorse Harris. For example, the New York Post on Wednesday cited one unnamed Biden source family wrote that Obama reportedly doesn’t think Harris can beat Trump beat and that he is “incompetent”.
Before current President Biden dropped out of the campaign, Obama supported his candidacy, not only verbally, but also through campaign advice and consultation. After Biden’s poor performance in the televised duel with Trump, Obama was reportedly of the opinion that Biden’s chances of winning the election had decreased significantly, according to The Washington Post (WP).
NBC News reported this week that Obama and Harris have been communicating regularly since Sunday, when the vice president announced her candidacy, and Obama reportedly privately endorsed her back then. An unnamed source familiar with the communication told NBC Thursday that Obama did not want to overshadow Biden’s speech to the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday evening (Thursday morning EST) by publicly expressing his support for Harris.
A Thursday poll by The New York Times (NYT) and Sienna College predicts a very tight race between Trump and Harris, if the election were held now – Harris would get 47 percent of the likely vote and Trump 48.
The survey also shows that the assassination of Trump and the announcement of Harris that she intends to run for the White House led to a significant decrease in voters who hate both candidates: the so-called “double haters”, writes Axios. While in earlier NYT polls roughly a fifth of respondents said they did not want either candidate for president, now only eight percent of respondents said so.
According to Axios, the decline is partly due to left-leaning voters welcoming the end of Biden’s re-election campaign and favoring Harris. Nearly nine in 10 respondents, including Republican and independent voters, believe Biden’s ending the campaign was the right decision.
Another factor in the decline in undecided voters, according to Axios, may be that some respondents perceive Trump in a better light, considering his response to the assassination, which survived with an ear injury and after which his preferences increased.
A poll by The New York Times (NYT) and Sienna College on Thursday predicts a very close race between Trump and Harris if the election were held now – Harris would receive 47 percent of likely voters and Trump 48 percent. There are 101 days left until the US presidential election.
