Former President Barack Obama has been treading carefully—while occasionally sounding the alarm about some of his successor’s worst outrages—but he’s not sitting out 2018:
Obama isn’t expecting to make campaign appearances until the fall, people who’ve been working on the plans say, and when he does, he will take cues from the National Democratic Redistricting Committee in looking for endorsements and appearances that play up redistricting. He already has pending requests from the DNC, the NDRC, Organizing for Action, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, but he hasn’t yet committed to dates.
The most likely stops will be where races for governor, or perhaps Senate, overlap with competitive races for the House and state legislature. Obama won’t endorse in primaries, but once he does weigh in, will be open to a range of ways to help, from rallies like the one he did for Ralph Northam in the Virginia governor’s race to the robocall he recorded for Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate race.
Obama is weighing where he can make a difference without turning himself into a lightning rod for the rage of Donald Trump and his base. And veterans of his presidential campaigns will be taking part in the broader 2018 effort.
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