Obama campaigns for Sherrill, Spanberger on Saturday in home stretch of gubernatorial elections

By Eric Bradner, CNN

(CNN) — Former President Barack Obama urged voters to break with President Donald Trump and “set a glorious example for the nation” on Saturday as he campaigned with the Democratic nominees for governor in Virginia and New Jersey ahead of Tuesday’s elections.

In his first of two events Saturday, a rally with former Rep. Abigail Spanberger — the Democrat facing Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in Virginia’s governor race — Obama told the crowd in Norfolk that after the first nine months of Trump’s second term, “the stakes are now clear.”

“We don’t need to speculate about the dangers to our democracy. We don’t need to wonder about whether vulnerable people are going to be hurt, or ask ourselves how much more coarse and mean our culture can become. We’ve witnessed it. Elections do matter,” he said. “We all have more power than we think. We just have to use it.”

With the Democratic Party out of power in Washington and without a clear national leader, Obama is reprising his role as the party’s biggest and most unifying draw, delivering a closing message in the final days of elections that will serve as a temperature check on Trump’s first year and set the stage for next year’s midterms.

In New Jersey later Saturday, Obama told voters the state should “point America in a better direction” by electing Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democrat who is taking on GOP former state lawmaker Jack Ciattarelli in the governor’s race.

He mocked Ciattarelli for saying in a debate that Trump deserves an “A” grade for his performance in office.

“I know there’s been grade inflation, but really? An A? This is the best we could do? I mean, these are the same folks who put secret war plans in a group chat,” referring to the Signal scandal. “You don’t think there’s anything they could be doing better?”

Before heading out to the rallies on Saturday, Obama called Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor in New York City. He has not endorsed Mamdani — aides attribute that to a policy of generally not getting involved in mayoral elections. But according to a person familiar with the conversation, he called Mamdani’s campaign “impressive to watch,” and offered to be a “sounding board” going forward.

In Virginia, the former president was sharply critical of Trump — though he only once used his name.

“All of us are being tested right now,” Obama said. “Trump and the Republicans — they want you to think it’s part of their story, that things only happen from the top down; that a few people in power make decisions and the rest of us have to live with the consequences. But real change has always come from the bottom up; from ordinary folks who look around and say, we can do better, and then join together to make change happen.”

Obama said he knew what Trump planned to do, but added that he “will admit, it’s worse than even I expected.”

He said he worries about “how quickly basic democratic rules and norms have been weakened.” Obama also said he is concerned about “the growing concentration of economic power in this country,” and that business leaders, law firms and universities “have been willing to bend the knee to this president’s autocratic impulses” to avoid confrontation.

He also criticized Trump’s replacement of career prosecutors with loyalists at the Justice Department, his “shambolic tariff policy” and said the White House every day delivers “lawlessness and recklessness and mean-spiritedness and just plain craziness.”

“It’s like every day is Halloween, except it’s all tricks and no treats,” he said.

Nine years after leaving office, Obama remains the Democratic Party’s most powerful surrogate — a reality underscored by his high-profile appearances on the final weekend of two of 2025’s most important contests. Obama has also stepped up his warnings about what he says is the damage being wrought to the country by President Donald Trump.

The crowd in Norfolk, Virginia, on Saturday waited about five hours for Obama to speak, but that didn’t damper their enthusiasm. When Spanberger introduced Obama, the cheers for him were so loud you couldn’t hear her. The 7,000-seat arena was near capacity.

Spanberger sought to tie Tuesday’s election to a signal Democrats can send to the nation.

“With the political turmoil coming out of Washington right now, this election is an opportunity, because in just three more days, when the polls close, Virginia voters can and will send a message. Amid the recklessness and the heartlessness out of Washington, Virginia can and will flip statewide seats from red to blue,” Spanberger said.

The event served as an important base motivator on the last day of early voting.

“I’m concerned about the deterioration of the country, the way people are treated. The sadness of everything that’s happening, it’s heartbreaking,” Gail Buchanan of Chesterfield, Virginia told CNN at the rally.

Also of note, Virginia’s Democratic nominee for attorney general, Jay Jones, spoke though he was not listed as a planned speaker. Jones has been under fire for violent language he sent about a colleague in recently surfaced text messages in 2022.

Obama is the closer after a number of ambitious Democrats have also hit the trail for Sherrill and Spanberger. The list of Democratic governors to campaign with Spanberger and Sherrill includes Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, Maryland’s Wes Moore, Illinois’ JB Pritzker, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer.

Obama has slowly ramped up his involvement in both gubernatorial elections. He cut ads for both candidates that began airing in mid-October.

After voting in Bridgewater on Friday, Ciattarelli — whose near miss in the 2021 New Jersey governor’s race was an early indicator of the state’s rightward shift in the 2024 presidential race, when Trump closed his losing margin from 16 percentage points in 2020 to 6 points last year — downplayed any impact Obama’s appearance with Sherrill might have in the closing days of the campaign.

“This is what I refer to as the choreography of campaigns, but at the end of day, I really believe this, particularly in New Jersey, a candidate has to win the race, and that’s why I get up and down the state every day and engage with people every day, shake hands every single day.” Ciattarelli said. “I think we’ve done that a hell of a lot better than my opponent.”

The Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races, which are held a year after presidential elections, are widely viewed as an important gauge of the nation’s political mood almost a year into a new presidency. One year into Obama’s White House tenure, Republican Bob McDonnell’s win in Virginia and Chris Christie’s win in New Jersey offered previews of the red wave that was to come in the 2010 midterms.

Spanberger and Sherrill are favored in the blue-leaning states, but wins are no lock: Four years ago, Republican Glenn Youngkin won the Virginia governor race; in New Jersey, Sherrill hasn’t been able to pull away after several public polls found her with a single-digit edge over Ciattarelli.

Both of Obama’s Saturday stops — Newark and Norfolk — are in areas with significant Black populations. Over the last several election cycles he has appeared often with Virginia Democratic candidates at base-rallying events in the Hampton Roads region.

This story has been updated with additional details.

CNN’s Arlette Saenz, Eva McKend, Eric Fiegel, Edward-Isaac Dovere and Dalia Abdelwahab contributed to this report.

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