Michelle Obama is the backer that Joe Biden really wants

Support from the former US first lady would be nothing but positive for Joe Biden.

Former US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle in 2017. Joe Biden has said he would seek Mrs Obama as his vice-presidential candidate ‘in a heartbeat if I thought there was any chance of her doing it’. Picture: AFP

When Bernie Sanders dropped out of the US presidential race last week he cleared the path for Joe Biden to take on President Donald Trump in November.

He also liberated the Democratic Party’s most valuable campaigner to come off the sidelines and join the fray once more. The only thing the Democrats disagree on is whether that person is Barack Obama or his wife, Michelle.

The former president deliberately kept out of the primaries, seeing his role as bringing the party back together once the nominee was settled, rather than tipping the scales for a particular candidate.

Mr Obama, 58, who has set up a production company with Netflix and is writing a memoir, offered advice to any candidate who might want it, holding meetings in his office in Washington with at least seven of them, including Mr Sanders, 78.

But by the time the race was down to the Democratic socialist insurgent and Mr Biden, 77, there was little doubt about whom Mr Obama wanted to prevail: the man who was his vice-president for eight years.

Having Mr Obama in his corner is a clear positive for Mr Biden, Frank Luntz, a polling expert, said. “Hillary Clinton knows what it is not to have Obama’s constituency turn out for you,” he told The Times.

“A significant percentage of African-Americans stayed home and that made the difference in Michigan in particular, and to a lesser degree in Pennsylvania.”

Mr Biden already has strong support from African-Americans, however, thanks to his time in the White House with Mr Obama.

The nominating contest was up-ended in South Carolina, where a majority African-American primary electorate propelled Mr Biden to the front of the field after his humiliating performances in overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire.

Mr Luntz said that Mrs Obama would be an even greater asset to Mr Biden.

“She doesn’t have the partisan brittleness that former presidents carry with them. She ended her term as first lady very popular. There is no negative to her, only positive.

“Michelle adds a female voice, which is essential. Trump made significant advances among white working-class males, including union members, and to counterbalance that the Democrats have to push up to the suburban female vote that had at one point been leaning Republican. It does not lean Republican any more, and Michelle Obama is the perfect conduit for that vote.”

These suburban women, Mr Luntz said, are especially receptive to a non-political message. “They don’t want to be appealed to for being Democrats … they want an appeal based on fairness and based on justice. It’s not ideological, it’s cultural.”

Some Democrats have even begun to dream that Mrs Obama, 56, might take a more formal role in Mr Biden’s campaign as vice-presidential candidate.

When a voter suggested the idea in South Carolina in February – to cheers from the Democratic crowd – Mr Biden replied: “I’d do that in a heartbeat if I thought there was any chance of her doing it.”

The Times