OBAMA: “President Barack Obama will hit the campaign trail on Thursday [10-19-17] to rally black voters behind candidates for governor in Virginia and New Jersey amid stern warnings that African Americans may not come out in force on an Election Day that is just three weeks away…
Phillip E. Thompson, the president of the N.A.A.C.P. in Virginia’s Loudoun County, said he was worried that black voters were simply not engaged…
Mr. Obama may be a draw, but there are limits to what he can accomplish as a surrogate campaigner during brief forays into electoral politics. Democrats recall too well the dip in black turnout in the decisive states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that doomed Hillary Clinton last year. That same dip was partly to blame for the down-ballot losses that Democrats suffered earlier in Mr. Obama’s term.
Another slump in 2018 would imperil the party’s efforts to capture the House, hold its own in the Senate and win key governorships.”
-Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, “Obama Returns to Campaign Trail to Rally Black Voters,” The New York Times online, Oct. 18, 2017