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Did Michelle Obama's Chances of Being the Democratic Nominee Just Go Up?

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  January 11, 2024 3:45 PM

Michelle Obama is back in the news after she expressed concerns about the upcoming November election, noting during the "On Purpose" podcast that she's "terrified about what could possibly happen." The former first lady has been floated as a truly dark horse to replace President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, but that idea once more rears its head whenever she is in the news cycle. It brings us back to a prediction that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) made last September in an episode of "The Verdict."

At the time, Cruz offered that Biden was still likely to be the nominee. Such a prediction was brought up once more during Wednesday's episode, during which co-host Ben Ferguson reminded Cruz of how he had brought up the idea.

Referring to Obama's concerns, Ferguson offered that "a prediction that you made on this show seems to be much closer to becoming a reality than anyone imagined," adding "it sounded to me like she's saying 'I might want to be the President of the United States of America.'"

Cruz pointed out that as he shared in that previous podcast, he "thought the odds were dramatically rising that the Democrat Party would pull the ripcord on Joe Biden, parachute him out, abandon him, and replace him with Michelle Obama." 

Polls have shown that voters, including Democrats, want someone other than Biden as the nominee. What challengers he has, Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota and Marianne Williamson, haven't gained much traction though. Phillips certainly seems to have been spurned by his party members, and he not only left his leadership position in the House, but announced late last year that he would not be seeking reelection. 

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Cruz, in this more recent podcast, addressed the field and timing, including the candidates who would be willing to jump in if Biden had dropped out. 

"I think if Joe Biden had dropped out two months ago, I think you'd see a ton of Democrats jumping in the field. I think the top four in the field would be [Vice President] Kamala Harris, [Secretary of Transportation] Pete Buttigieg, [Sen.] Elizabeth Warren [D-MA], and [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom," he offered, adding "there'll be others but those would be the top four." In that scenario, he believes that Warren would emerge victorious, especially if Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is out, especially since "she is the id of the Democrat Party."

Cruz still believes that Biden's name will be on the ballot, based on timing. That brings us to the convention, with Cruz explaining "at this point, we're sitting here in January, it's too late for Joe Biden not to run so he's gonna run, he's on the ballot," which "means the only opportunity for the Democrats to pull Biden is at their convention this summer."

The Democrats still have a problem, though, given how Harris is so unpopular. Cruz reminded he is still fully convinced that the party will not abandon her in order to replace her with Newsom, emphasizing "I think the chances of that happening are 0.00 percent," given that he thinks "the Democrat Party is structurally incapable of replacing an African American woman with a white guy," adding "I think their party would implode and spontaneously combust in flames, they cannot do that" to really drive the point home. 

But, Harris is so deeply unpopular. An NBC News poll from last June showed her to be the least popular vice president since they polled the topic, with 49 percent of voters having a negative view of her to just 32 percent having a positive view. Ferguson also reminded how she too had run for president in 2020, but was one of the first to drop out, in December 2019. 

The black woman for Democrats to pick, then, would be Michelle Obama, with Cruz explaining she is the "literally one person on Planet Earth."

"And so, from the Democrat Party's perspective, that really is a set of one, they couldn't push her aside for, you know, for a House member, like you can't push the sitting vice president aside for someone further down the political pecking order. So, there is literally one person on planet Earth, who the Democrat Party could tolerate pushing Kamala aside for and that is, Michelle Obama, and Michelle Obama is the former First Lady, she sort of stands on a different footing," he added.

In September, the number was at 35 percent, Cruz predicted. Cruz now says that the interview Michelle Obama gave, which he called "incredibly revealing," means he's changing his prediction. That number is now at 45 percent or "almost a coin flip." Cruz still thinks it is "slightly more likely than not that Biden remains the nominee," but he had a particular emphasis there. 

Cruz, in addressing criticisms, pointed to how there are those who believe she doesn't want to hold office and has never held office before, as well as how she lives a celebrity kind of life. She certainly went a different route from Hillary Clinton after Bill Clinton had served his terms as president. However, as Cruz highlighted, Michelle Obama went with such a tone and sense of urgency during her interview. 

"What is really striking there is where she's like, the thing that keeps me up at night is who's going to be the next leader of the free world and she says, you know, 'what does government do?' She goes, 'oh my God, government does everything in our lives,'" the senator offered, adding "now that's a pretty powerful refutation of the point that she doesn't care if it's keeping her up at night and she thinks government because everything in the question of who's going to be the leader of the free world, is what is filling her mind, okay, that's significant. And then the second thing she says where she's talking about being first lady, and she says, 'I know a lot."

Cruz thus sees it as how Obama "basically is like pitching her qualifications, like everything she knows, because she was married to Barack Obama when he was president, and still is today that she, like knows everything the president needs to know. And you're right, it does feel a little bit like a pitch of, 'hey, guys, I'm here, I'm ready. I can step in, and I'm willing to do it.'"

That doesn't mean that a Michelle Obama nomination would be something to take lightly. Far from it. In both the September and January podcasts, Cruz expressed his concern. 

"And candidly," he shared in the more recent episode, "I had been hoping the thing that might save America is that Michelle would be selfish enough to say, 'I don't want the nomination, even if you hand it to me, even if it's a coronation, even if I don't have to run for two years, even if I'm just like, invited into the Oval Office with the blow of a trumpet. I don't want it because I like my life.' Like, I would really like Michelle to say that because I think if she's the Democratic nominee, it is incredibly dangerous," Cruz made clear. "She is a dangerous, dangerous, dangerous nominee," he went to emphasize, "because the first lady has a patina of Teflon, she's not perceived as overly partisan, she's not perceived as combative."

"Now, I think she's incredibly partisan. I think she's more partisan than Barack is and was as president, but look, if you look at the polling numbers, Michelle Obama is the most popular woman on the face of the planet. And that's just objectively true. And a first lady is protected by that, particularly a first lady that had eight years of the media and Hollywood just singing her praises. And so I listened to that interview, and frankly, it scares the heck out of me," he warned.

Speaking further about the logistics about such campaign, especially if she is picked as the nominee at the convention, Ferguson pointed out Obama "wouldn't have to run a real campaign" and would only have to have "a two-month-plus campaign." She thus might not even have to debate former and potentially future President Donald Trump, assuming he'd be the nominee. 

Cruz also reminded how he had run for president back in 2016. "Look, running for president is brutally hard. I know this from firsthand knowledge. I loved every minute of it, but it ain't easy. It's all-consuming," he shared, reminding "and Michelle knows that. I mean, she knows that uniquely, and that she was side by side, Barack Obama worked his butt off running for president. He was a phenom of the modern age." Michelle, however, forewent running herself in the subsequent elections. 

The senator and former presidential candidate also offered how that timing discussed above could help Michelle Obama here. 

"It's a very different cost-benefit analysis to say do you come in, in the summertime, in the convention? Are you handed the nomination without having to debate a single primary opponent, without having to campaign, without having to fight? And do you have a three-month campaign where the media will be singing Hosannas that--that--that Saint Michelle has come to save us? That's a very different cost-benefit analysis and I gotta say, the number of people on planet earth who if you were offered, jump in for three months and you can become president would say no, is really small," Cruz shared. "There may be some. But man, I know for a fact if I told you right now 'hey, jump in the summer. You can be president in November, or elected president in November and start January,' you’d be a yes. I'd certainly be a yes and it's a much wider set than the people who are psychotic enough to actually run for president."

Not only would it be "not hard," as Ferguson put it, "it's not an election, it's a coronation," Cruz added. 

Cruz also invoked the name of Democratic strategist David Axelrod. "But I gotta say if I were David Axelrod, if I were a Democrat strategist, I would be all in on this. I'd be like, 'this is how we keep our radical left-wing agenda going.' Joe Biden has so many faults. And by the way, Axelrod has floated trial balloons, the media who is the left wing of the Democrat party, they keep flooding trial balloons of 'gosh, Biden's a really crappy candidate like, let's sing his praises, let's say thank you for coming in for four years, but let's put him on an ice float and push them out into the Arctic.'" 

The predictions about Michelle Obama are not merely to do with her, but also to do with Biden himself, as his facing particularly poor approval ratings and is losing to Trump in key states as well as in the election overall. RealClearPolling currently has Trump with a lead of +1 over Biden. The Biden reelection strategy hasn't been all that impressive in response, with the president and first lady going for quite the blame game. 

And Axelrod is certainly among those raising concerns in recent months about Biden running for reelection. Given how close he is with the Obamas, this would be fascinating to see if it gets any traction. It might still seem a bit too much like an oddity to be believable, but we're still just under 10 months from the election, and the 81-year-old president, who will just be able to turn 82-years-old by the time November is here, isn't getting any younger.