By Jeff Mason
PITTSBURGH (Reuters) -Former President Barack Obama will make his case for Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday night during a rally at a Pittsburgh college campus, as Democrats seek to spur young people to vote in the Nov. 5 election.
Obama has been a vocal supporter of Harris since she ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket after President Joe Biden stepped aside in July following a poor debate performance against Republican former President Donald Trump.
Obama, whose White House term ended in 2017, is still popular with his party’s base. His rally at the University of Pittsburgh, which he will headline while Harris campaigns in Nevada and Arizona, is the first of several events he plans to do in battleground states across the country in the coming weeks.
Obama is not the only former president the Harris campaign plans to deploy.
Bill Clinton, a two-term Democratic president and former Arkansas governor, will make stops in Georgia on Sunday and Monday before traveling to North Carolina for a bus tour later in the week in an effort to reach rural voters.
In remarks slated to begin around 7:15 pm ET (2315 GMT), Obama will say Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, her running mate, are uniquely positioned to lead the United States at this moment, according to his adviser Eric Schultz.
“He’ll also talk about the enormous stakes and the risks involved in returning President Trump into office,” Schultz said.
Youth are a critical part of the coalition that the Harris campaign hopes will propel her to victory. But voter registration among young people in 34 states is down compared with four years ago, according to data updated in September from the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.
The number of people between the ages of 18 and 29 who are registered to vote in Pennsylvania in September was 15 percent lower than it was on Election Day in 2020, the center’s data showed.
Obama’s engagement could help get young people motivated in the campaign’s final stretch. The former president has sought to serve as a closer for Democratic candidates before, with events for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and for Biden in 2020, especially at the end of the election cycle when early voting had begun, as it has now.
Obama is focused on voters who can put the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate in Democratic hands, another aide said. The former president has helped raise $80 million for the 2024 presidential campaign.
Obama and his wife Michelle gave rousing speeches in support of Harris at the Democratic National Convention in August; the former first lady is expected to campaign further for Harris as well.
Harris was an early supporter of Barack Obama’s own 2008 presidential bid, and he has helped her behind the scenes as the party’s 2024 standard-bearer, encouraging her to tap talent to bolster her campaign, which she did.
The former president is viewed by some as having helped usher Biden out of the race after Democrats’ worries about the 81-year-old leader’s age and abilities skyrocketed after his June debate against Trump.
Harris and Trump remain in a close race, and winning Pennsylvania could be key to winning the White House.
