Former President Barack Obama is headed to Michigan to campaign with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed and other down-ballot Democrats, and the reaction from conservative commentators has been sharp, skeptical, and at times combative.
On a televised panel carried by the account @Acyn, Fox News contributor and former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen-adjacent commentator Scott Jennings argued that Obama's involvement signals Democratic weakness rather than strength. "I don't think Obama would be going there if they were so confident about it," Jennings said. He added that the visit "tells you something critical about the weakness in his coalition," pointing to El-Sayed's performance with African-American voters in the Democratic primary.
The exchange, posted by @Acyn, also included Jennings' claim that El-Sayed "has not shored up that support in Michigan" and that Democrats "need Obama to try to do that."
Neera Tanden, a former Biden domestic policy adviser, pushed back hard in the same segment. "El-Sayed has done a phenomenal job of uniting the Democratic party behind him," Tanden said, citing Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Senator Elissa Slotkin campaigning with him. "Obama will be campaigning with him. And I expect on election day, you'll see a strong united Democratic party behind him."
When Jennings questioned whether El-Sayed has support among Jewish Democrats in Michigan, Tanden called the suggestion "absolutely false" and "ridiculous," noting that Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish, "just did an event with him last week."
The segment then pivoted to President Donald Trump's own campaign schedule. Jennings asked Tanden whether Trump planned to campaign for Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers in Michigan. Tanden turned the question back on him. "Really? Are they going to campaign together?" she asked. "Because, you know, Greg Abbott tonight announced that he would not be seen in Texas with Donald Trump next week."
That Abbott line echoed a post from former Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer, who wrote on X, "Even Greg Abbott won't be seen with Trump."
Jennings acknowledged that Trump is "literally doing thirty-five events in, like, thirty-two days" and is "campaigning all over the country," but noted the president is not appearing alongside candidates in close races. "He's in Nebraska tonight," Jennings said. "In a close race. In Nebraska, a state which he won by twenty-five, thirty points."
The panel also veered into a heated argument about the Supreme Court. In a separate clip posted by @Acyn, Jennings argued that Democrats complain about the court only when they lose. "Anytime they lose a case, they say, we have to expand the court so that they don't lose their cases," Jennings said. "When a case goes their way, they don't say anything."
But attorney and legal commentator Andrew Honig-identified in the transcript as Honig-turned the criticism back on Trump. "The number one complainer about the U.S. Supreme Court is who? The president, Donald Trump," Honig said. "Every time he loses."
Jennings countered that "every president who loses gets mad at the court," but Honig pressed the point. "What president takes to social media and attacks the justices?" he asked. "Have other presidents said that justices are embarrassment to their families, fools and lapdogs?"
Honig also referenced the security threats facing two Trump-appointed justices, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh. "Amy Coney Barrett, who has to wear a bulletproof vest," he said. "And Brett Kavanaugh. There was an attempted assassination."
The exchange then moved to the broader question of court politicization. "Once you politicize the courts, it's majority all the way down, which is power, power, power," Jennings said. He added that he personally supports Supreme Court ethics reform but opposes expanding the court.
The panel's back-and-forth reflects a broader frustration among conservatives who see the Democratic Party's internal divisions on display in Michigan, where El-Sayed's primary victory over a more establishment-backed candidate exposed a rift that Obama's visit is meant to bridge. The White House has not announced whether Trump will campaign alongside Rogers, though Jennings said on air that he believes Trump is going to Michigan.
Tanden's comparison of Obama's popularity to Trump's was also part of the exchange. "Barack Obama... has twice the popularity of Donald Trump," she said. "He's in the sixties while Donald Trump is in the mid-thirties."
Next News Network could not independently verify the panel's claims about El-Sayed's internal polling, the Abbott-Trump scheduling conflict, or the ratings comparisons cited during the segment.
The reaction comes as Trump is campaigning in Nebraska for Senator Pete Ricketts and Vice President JD Vance is rallying in Alaska for Senator Dan Sullivan. Obama's Michigan stop is part of a broader push by the former president ahead of the midterms, according to reporting by Politico.
What began as a question about Obama's effectiveness has now become a broader argument over which party is more divided, whose coalition is weaker, and whether the president's own party wants him on the trail. The panel's answers revealed more agreement on the diagnosis than on the cure.
Our Take
The left loves to lecture about norms and institutions, but the moment a conservative panelist points out that Democrats threaten to expand the Supreme Court every time they lose a case, the conversation suddenly becomes about Donald Trump's tweets. Honig's deflection is telling: he cannot defend the Democratic Party's court-packing rhetoric, so he changes the subject to the president's social media habits. That is not an argument. That is a dodge.
What the exchange really reveals is that the Democratic coalition is not the unified front Tanden wants viewers to believe. If it were, Obama would not need to parachute into Michigan to shore up support for a candidate who struggled with a key constituency in his own primary. Jennings was right to point that out, and Tanden's refusal to engage the substance-and her rush to call his point "ridiculous"-shows the left knows the charge has merit.
The Abbott-Trump dust-up is a sideshow, but it is an instructive one. Republican governors know their states. They know when a presidential visit helps and when it hurts. If Greg Abbott is keeping his distance, it is not because he opposes Trump's agenda. It is because he is reading the same polls everyone else is.
The real story here is not that Obama is campaigning for Democrats. It is that he has to.
