Former President Barack Obama returns to Michigan and Ohio on Saturday to test his enduring political pull in two crucial Rust Belt states where he won two decisive victories, entering the fray just 10 days before midterm elections that could determine control of the U.S. Senate.
Obama is scheduled to campaign for Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Detroit before heading to Cleveland to rally alongside former Democratic Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown.
The political landscape in both states has shifted significantly since Obama left office. Ohio has become a Republican stronghold, while Michigan has swung unpredictably, backing President Donald Trump in 2016, shifting to Joe Biden in 2020 and returning to Trump in 2024.
While his party continues to face headwinds, Obama's personal popularity has largely weathered the polarization of the post-presidency era. He remains one of the most popular living former presidents in national polling, and a recent survey in Ohio found him to be the only prominent public figure in the state with a positive favorability rating.
Even so, the Michigan stop introduces a delicate dynamic. El-Sayed has previously criticized the Obama administration for falling short of progressive expectations, forcing the candidate to navigate past remarks as the campaign enters its final stretch.
Newsweek reached out to El-Sayed's and Brown's campaign for comment Friday.
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Obama to Campaign in Detroit for Abdul El-Sayed: What to Know
The rally is set for 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., with the location not yet announced as of Friday afternoon. Joining Obama on stage will be El-Sayed and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic nominee for governor. The state party is pitching it as a push to bank early votes, with in-person early voting now open across Michigan.
Obama last campaigned in Detroit in October 2024 for former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Detroit is where El-Sayed has the most ground to make up. In the August primary, Representative Haley Stevens took about 51 percent of the Democratic vote in Wayne County to El-Sayed's 45 percent. More than three-quarters of Detroit residents are Black. Among Black voters in the city, El-Sayed won just 31 percent against Stevens, Bridge Michigan reported. Pro-Stevens ads during the primary featured Obama praising her.
Since then, El-Sayed has leaned on a string of prominent Black Democrats. Harris held a roundtable on Black maternal healthcare with him in Detroit, and Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock is scheduled to campaign with him, along with several members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
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Whether Obama would get involved at all was an open question for a while. El-Sayed has called the Affordable Care Act an "incremental" policy. He and Obama talked in August, reportedly about pulling Michigan Democrats back together after a bitter primary.
The older record surfaced once the rally was announced. Days after Obama beat Mitt Romney in 2012, El-Sayed wrote in the Huffington Post that the result was no victory for progressives. "It was the rock we chose over the hard place," he wrote. The column went after Obama's record on war, civil liberties and deportations.
On NBC News' Meet the Press on October 11, host Kristen Welker asked the Senate hopeful about it.
"I was younger, right, and I was angry about circumstances," El-Sayed said.
He went on to cite the Trump years as a reason his view had softened, saying, "President Obama was handed a really difficult set of circumstances, and he did his best." He also said he and other Democrats running this year might push in different directions than Obama's administration did.
Obama to Campaign in Cleveland for Sherrod Brown: What to Know
Saturday will be Obama's first visit to Ohio since 2018. He will appear with Brown and Amy Acton, the party's nominee for governor, in an afternoon rally whose venue has not been released as of Friday afternoon.
In a Brown endorsement video earlier this month, Obama put the stakes bluntly: "This race is going to be close. It could determine which party controls the Senate, and whether Ohioans can count on the people in Washington to be fighting for you.”
Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland, is still Democratic territory. Several of its neighbors along Lake Erie are not, having moved from Obama to Trump over the past three presidential elections.
Obama's standing in Ohio is unusual for a politician of either party right now. Bowling Green State University's October poll of likely voters found Trump at -15 points, Vice President JD Vance at -7 and Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno at -17. Obama, at +7, was the only public official in positive territory. The poll, which surveyed 1,000 likely Ohio voters between September 29 and October 9, has a margin of error of 3.95 percentage points.
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The national picture looks similar. CNN's June survey had 57 percent of Americans viewing Obama favorably, against 34 percent for Trump and 30 percent for Biden. Democrats were nearly unanimous at 96 percent, and almost one in five Republicans also viewed him favorably.
In YouGov's summer rankings Obama placed first among political figures, ahead of independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former GOP California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Why Are the Michigan and Ohio Senate Races Important in the 2026 Midterms?
Republicans control the Senate 53-47. Democrats would need to gain four seats for a majority, since Vance is the tiebreaker. Holding Michigan is close to a requirement for that math, and flipping Ohio would be one of the four.
Michigan's seat is open in a state Trump carried by about 1.4 points two years ago since Democratic Senator Gary Peters is retiring, Former Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee, came within fewer than 20,000 votes of beating Elissa Slotkin for the state's other Senate seat in 2024, and Republicans now have a shot at a seat Democrats have held since 1979.
Ohio's race is a special election. Governor Mike DeWine appointed then-Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted to fill the seat Vance gave up for the vice presidency. Brown, who held a Senate seat for three terms, lost his reelection bid to Moreno in 2024 by slightly over 3.5 points. His lead this year runs against Ohio's decadelong rightward shift.
Both parties are spending accordingly. An Ohio Capital Journal analysis pointed to visits this month from Trump, Vance and Obama, plus roughly $750 million in expected campaign spending, as signs the statewide races are truly competitive. Trump campaigned for Husted in Ohio earlier this month.
Newsweek reached out to Rogers' and Husted's campaign for comment Friday.
What Are the Latest Polls in the Michigan Senate Race Between Rogers and El-Sayed?
El-Sayed led Rogers 50 percent to 48 percent in Marist University's survey of likely voters taken October 15 to 18. The newest poll in the race, from InsiderAdvantage on October 21 and 22, had El-Sayed up a single point, 47 to 46. He went into the candidates' final debate on October 21 up about 2.6 points in the RealClearPolitics average.
Rogers' best recent number came from a poll his allies paid for. The Tyson Group, surveying for the Rogers-affiliated Alliance for a Better Future, found him ahead 46 percent to 44 percent in early October. Fox News' late-September poll, run by Beacon Research and Shaw & Company, gave El-Sayed a one-point edge (50 to 49 percent).
What Are the Latest Polls in the Ohio Senate Race between Husted and Brown?
An ActiVote poll shows Husted with 50.2 percent compared to Brown's 49.8 percent. The poll surveyed 400 likely midterm voters from September 26 to October 18, 2026, and had an average expected error of 4.9 percent.
A Marist University poll shows Brown with 48 percent compared to Husted's 44 percent, while 2 percent said other, 4 percent were undecided and 1 percent did not respond. The poll surveyed 1,176 respondents from October 15-18, 2026, and had a margin of error of 4.5 percent for likely voters.
A Fox News Poll released Wednesday also shows that Brown leads Husted 52 percent to 47 percent among likely voters and 2 percent don't know. The poll surveyed 1,592 likely voters from October 15 to October 19 and has a margin of error of 2 percent.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Anthony Murray and Jason Lemon.