The Embarrassing Footnote to Barack Obama's Waning Influence on the

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Many of us remember back in 2004 when then-State Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), also the Democrat Senate nominee at the time, gave the keynote address at that year’s DNC, which took place in Boston.

Predictably, the mainstream media swooned and swayed, joining Democrats in crowning Obama with the “rising star” status and at times treating him like a god, all of which culminated in his Senate victory later that year, and in his presidential election win in 2008.

In the eyes of Democrats and the media, Obama could do no wrong during his eight years in office. And if you were a Republican who had legitimate disagreements with him, you were branded a racist.

But it’s 2024 now, 12 years since Obama’s last year in office. Times have changed, people have changed, political coalitions have changed, and the country has changed.

And I can think of no better reflection of that than by looking at not just what happened on Election Day with Donald Trump’s winning his second presidential bid but also what happened here in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina in the closing days of the presidential campaign.

The Harris campaign brought Obama – an early proponent of the “Dump Joe” movement – to Charlotte on Friday, October 25th, just a little over a week before election day. Charlotte is in Mecklenburg County, which is a reliably blue county in the state. Obviously, Kamala HQ believed he still had that “Obama magic,” something that helped propel him to victory in North Carolina in 2008, a rare win for a Democrat presidential candidate in this state.

Except as the results from Meck County demonstrated, that old Obama magic is gone:

While Mecklenburg County, a reliably blue area, did vote for Harris, voting data shows the Vice President received fewer votes than President Joe Biden when he ran in 2020, while President-Elect Trump gained voters in the area.

[…]

The results were a major blow for a party that made record investments, increasing volunteers by the thousands and raising roughly $2.7 million in Mecklenburg County alone.

This is wild. Kamala didn’t do as well as Joe Biden in Mecklenburg County, NC (my county, which is solidly blue) while Trump did better in comparison to his to 2020 numbers. I gotta see the numbers on this. (via @wcnc) #ncpol pic.twitter.com/vvZzIZP7dg

— Sister Toldjah 💙 (@sistertoldjah) November 7, 2024

I indeed checked the numbers. The unofficial results from Tuesday’s election show that Harris got 374,955 votes here. Joe Biden got 378,107 in 2020.

To be fair, this may not just be an Obama problem but a Meck Dem Party problem as well considering turnout was down in the last two election cycles for them, which led to their executive director resigning Wednesday – accusing the party of “racism” along the way:

Mecklenburg was one of the worst counties in the state for voter turnout in the 2022 midterms (92nd out of 100).

It was below average again in 2024–even despite the Harris campaign bringing Barack Obama to Charlotte in the closing days of the campaign https://t.co/WIiHpaALPB

— Will Doran (@will_doran) November 7, 2024