- Michelle Obama has repeatedly ruled out running for president
- The idea caught on as conservatives and Democrats worried about Biden’s age
- But our exclusive poll shows she would do no better than Biden against Trump
Michelle Obama has never shown any interest in running for president and this month her office made it clear that she fully supported Joe Biden’s re-election.
Still, the idea that the former first lady might be planning to skydive as an alternative to the 81-year-old president and save the Democratic Party won’t go away.
Maybe until now.
An exclusive DailyMail.com/JL Partners poll shows she would do no better than Biden in a hypothetical contest against Donald Trump.
Our poll of 1,000 likely voters showed she would lose to the former president by three points in a hypothetical contest.
Michelle Obama wouldn’t beat Donald Trump if she parachuted into the Democratic Party nomination, according to our exclusive poll of 1,000 likely voters
Obama has ruled herself out as a presidential candidate, putting to bed speculation that she would intervene at the last minute to give Democrats a better chance of defeating Trump
That’s the same margin by which Biden loses.
“Some have been touting an emergency parachute for Biden for some time: conscription Michelle Obama,” said pollster James Johnson, co-founder of JL Partners.
“But it turns out that voters are no more likely to vote for Michelle than for Trump than for Biden, with Trump beating her overall and even among Independents.
“It was never very realistic, but this poll puts an end to the idea that it can be a saving force for the Democrats.”
The idea has occasionally been touted by Democrats concerned about Biden’s advanced age and his ability to win a runoff election.
They think her ease with voters, her star power and, at 60, her relative youth can keep the White House from falling into Republican hands.
Obama himself joined the chatter in January when she admitted he was concerned about the outcome of the 2024 election.
‘What will happen in the next elections? I’m terrified of what could happen because our leaders matter,” she told Jay Shetty on his “On Purpose” podcast in January.
“Who we select, who speaks for us, who holds the bully pulpit, it affects us in ways that I think people sometimes take for granted.”
The former first lady retains star power in Democratic politics despite largely removing herself from the political stage in recent years
When all candidates are added to the poll, the results show Trump maintaining his four-point lead over Joe Biden with just over seven months until the November 5 presidential election.
JL Partners surveyed 1,000 likely voters from March 20 to 24 via landline, mobile phone, text message and apps. The results have a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent
The idea really gained traction among right-wing pundits, who brought up her potential candidacy as a way to undermine Biden’s run.
Last month, she came out on top in a poll that asked participants at the Conservative Political Action Conference who they thought would hold on if Biden were to drop out.
Nearly half of the 1,478 respondents (47 percent) said Obama, followed by California Governor Gavin Newsom at 32 percent and Vice President Kamala Harris at six percent.
Obama’s office was forced to intervene days later and quell the speculation.
“As former First Lady Michelle Obama has said several times over the years, she will not run for president,” said Crystal Carson, her office’s director of communications. NBC News.
‘Mrs. Obama is supporting the re-election campaign of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.”