Barack Obama headlined a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fundraiser in Washington, D.C. on October 7 and told the room that James Talarico is polling ahead of Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race. "If you had told me that the polling currently shows James Talarico ahead of Ken Paxton," Obama said, "I would have said, 'eh, I don't think so.'"
The former president has raised $13.6 million for Democratic candidates. He's taped two dozen ads. He's got a Detroit rally scheduled for October 24 with Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. The Democratic National Committee is calling it momentum. The rest of us might call it something else: the party's entire bench fits in one man's Rolodex, and that man left office a decade ago.
DNC Chairman Ken Martin delivered the official talking point: "Democrats are heading into November with the wind at our backs and momentum on our side, but we're not taking anything for granted. President Obama's support will motivate and mobilize voters in the home stretch." Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer went further, claiming, "We do not want to be overconfident, but what we're seeing in state after state is that people are sick of Trump." Schumer added that this "has put us on the edge of victory."
The math looks like this: Republicans hold the Senate 53-47. Democrats need to flip four seats. They're eyeing Texas, Ohio, Michigan, and a handful of other states where they believe the map has shifted. Obama himself seemed genuinely surprised by the landscape, marveling at races he "would not have imagined being in play."
Delaware Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester, Vice Chair of the DSCC, called Obama "a voice for our country, and of both realism and practical optimism." House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries described the broader effort as "an all-hands-on-deck" situation, which is exactly the kind of language you use when things are going well.
Obama's pitch for El-Sayed in Michigan offered a window into the party's ideological positioning. "He's for a higher minimum wage and healthcare for all, and it doesn't seem crazy to me," Obama said. "You know, FDR was for that, too." Invoking Roosevelt to sell a candidate running against former Representative Mike Rogers in a state Trump won tells you where the party thinks the energy is. It's not in the center.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson has raised $30 million in the third quarter alone, bringing his total cycle fundraising to $156 million. The Republican operation isn't exactly sleeping through this. Roll Call noted that 78 percent of registered voters say they've already made up their minds on House races, with 89 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of Republicans locked in. Only 9 percent remain undecided.
The pattern here is older than anyone involved wants to admit. Obama was president when Democrats lost over a thousand state and federal seats between 2010 and 2014. The coalition he built was personal — it followed him out of office and didn't transfer to Hillary Clinton, didn't transfer to the congressional map, and didn't transfer to state legislatures. Now that same personal coalition is being asked to carry Senate candidates in states where the party's brand alone can't get the job done.
Leaked remarks from Ken Paxton's camp showed the Republican fretting over "the political impact of the Iran war and rising gas prices." Those are real vulnerabilities, and Obama's team clearly smells blood. But there's a difference between a former president generating enthusiasm at fundraisers and that enthusiasm surviving contact with an actual ballot. Obama's track record on that transfer is public record.
Schumer said they're on the edge of victory. Obama said the map surprised him. Martin said they've got the wind at their backs. That's three different ways of saying we need this to work. The last time Democrats deployed Obama as their midterm closer, they lost the Senate.
