Obama to the Rescue

President Obama conferred the least surprising endorsement of the year Thursday when he gave his formal blessing to would-be successor Hillary Clinton. Clinton is no doubt hoping for a boost in national support from the president, but politicians rarely find success transferring popularity.

Some experts said Obama’s move could help heal wounds exposed by the increasingly bitter primary battle between Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders. But they questioned how much it will mean for average Americans.

The problem with an endorsement for the general election is that Obama, himself, is quite polarizing. 

“On voters, I’m not so sure,” said Kyle Kopko, a political science professor at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.

Kopko said the timing of Obama’s endorsement could help nudge Bernie Sanders out of the race.

“I think that puts a lot of pressure on the Bernie Sanders campaign to not pursue a contested convention,” he said.

Had Obama acted earlier in the primary season to clear the field for Clinton, it may have nipped the Sanders insurgency in the bud, Kopko said. But he added that it would have strengthened the Vermont senator’s claims of a “rigged system,” he said.

“There was a risk that had he done it earlier in the campaign, there could still have been a backlash,” he said.

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The problem with an endorsement for the general election is that Obama, himself, is quite polarizing. Public opinion polls regularly show a roughly split verdict between voters who approve and disapprove approval of his job performance. He is most popular with voters who likely would be in Clinton’s camp in November anyway.

Clinton undoubtedly hopes Obama can crank up turnout among groups with whom he does remain popular — blacks and younger voters, for instance. The president’s communications director, Jennifer Psaki, suggested to The New York Times that would be part of the strategy.

“He’ll definitely spend time rallying his supporters,” she said. “But he will also be engaging communities where people are making up their minds, where they are looking to have a discussion about the choice they are facing.”

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire political science professor Eric Kasper, who has studied the impact of endorsements, said Obama’s backing could help unify Democrats.

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“At the margins, it could help move some of those Bernie supporters,” he said.

But Kasper noted that Obama is broadly unpopular among Republicans and has an approval rating under 50 percent among independents.

Obama hoping for some of his magic to rub off on Clinton might be problematic, however. Obama campaigned for Democratic congressional candidates in 2010 and 2014, but that did not prevent landslide defeats both times when his name was not on the ballot.

Galuup registered the highest approval rating of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, 68 percent, in May 1986. But that did not prevent his party from losing control of the Senate six months later. Bill Clinton’s popularity in 2000 was not enough to push his vice president, Al Gore, over the finish line.

“The coattails effect isn’t what we might expect it to be,” Kopko said.

Kasper said endorsements have less impact when they are expected, such as Obama backing his fellow Democrat.

“For most voters, it’s not going to be surprising; it’s not going to move the needle for them” he said. “There are limits to the power of endorsements.

Kasper said what is more effective than an endorsement is what the candidate does afterward. He noted that Gore tried to distance himself from Bill Clinton, who while popular, was coming off an impeachment trial.

“Part of it is how well you use your surrogates,” Kasper said. “I think [Hillary’s] going to use a very different strategy.”