Biden conspicuously absent from campaign trail
Joe Biden's limited campaign trail presence contrasts sharply with Barack Obama and Kamala Harris as Democrats fight for midterm majorities.
Joe Biden is the sitting president of the United States, and his own party doesn't want him on the trail. That’s not a spin line, it’s just the schedule. Barack Obama and Kamala Harris are out stumping for endangered Democrats while Biden keeps a light calendar and sticks to choreographed appearances.
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Former President Joe Biden has been largely absent from the campaign trail as Democrats fight to win back House and Senate majorities in November, even as former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris step up efforts to boost the party’s candidates.
Biden, 83, has kept a limited public schedule while battling advanced, metastatic prostate cancer. He has endorsed candidates and is helping Democrats raise money, according to a source in Biden's political circle. But the former president has made few political appearances this year.
The contrast is increasingly visible with four weeks to go until Election Day.
Obama is cutting ads for Senate and gubernatorial candidates, helping the party fundraise and preparing to hit the trail during the closing stretch of the midterm campaign. Harris, the Democrats' 2024 presidential nominee, is also campaigning across key battleground states, including a recent stop in Michigan with Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed.
Former President Barack Obama during a campaign event on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025. (Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Biden has appeared at just a handful of political events this year. He spoke in February at a reception honoring his 2020 South Carolina primary victory, which propelled him toward the Democratic nomination and eventually the presidency. In June, he addressed a Maryland Democratic Party event.
Longtime Democratic strategist Michael Ceraso told Fox News Digital that some in the party's elite and fundraising class are concerned that "if Biden were to be pushed out there in any sort of way for virtual or in-person opportunities, he could be a liability."
Veteran Democratic strategist Maria Cardona had a different take, telling Fox News Digital, "there are still a ton of Americans who love Joe Biden."
Biden did weigh in on a handful of Democratic primary showdowns this cycle. The former president endorsed former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms for governor. Bottoms, who later served as a senior advisor in the Biden administration, won the Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nomination.
The former president also backed Dan Koh, another Biden administration veteran, who captured the Democratic nomination in Massachusetts' 6th Congressional District.
Former President Joe Biden speaks to a crowd during a fundraising event with the South Carolina Democratic Party at the Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, South Carolina, on Feb. 27, 2026. The event marked the sixth anniversary of Biden's presidential primary win in South Carolina. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
Biden is also advocating on behalf of efforts to secure democracy.
"American democracy begins and ends at the ballot box. There is no more important civic duty nor fundamental right to be defended," the former president wrote on social media last month, as he cast his ballot in his home state of Delaware's primary. "Voting defines our freedom and makes everything possible."
But mostly, Biden has served as a foil for President Donald Trump, who Biden ousted from the White House in the 2020 election. Four years later, Biden ended his re-election bid after a disastrous debate performance against Trump in their 2024 rematch.
Trump and fellow Republicans are repeatedly blaming Biden for high prices at the gas and diesel pumps, even though public opinion polls indicate most Americans now point fingers at Trump and his administration.
Biden left the presidency with poor approval ratings, as he faced high inflation, foreign policy divides, and lingering questions about his ability to serve in office. He stood at 42% approval and 57% disapproval in January 2025, in the final Fox News poll during his White House tenure.
Post-presidency, Biden held a 71% favorable rating among Democrats in a CNN poll conducted in May. But Biden's favorable rating among Democrats was 25 points lower than that of Obama.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Joe Biden depart after speaking on the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in the Cross Hall of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, some Democrats still blame him for Trump's 2024 re-election, arguing that Biden did not get out of the race in time to allow Harris to mount a successful campaign.
Ceraso, a veteran of two presidential campaigns, pointed back to the 2024 election and told Fox News Digital that Biden left a "bad taste with some Democrats, especially within the in the party's elite and fundraising class."
He added, "I do not think Biden has the same level of charisma as Vice President Harris and former President Obama, and if I'm organizing an event to get thousands of people to come out, I would not do that around Biden."
Cardona, a Democratic National Committee member, said that Biden's health is stifling requests for campaign trail appearances.
"I guarantee you no one would try to bother him to come campaign for them while, at 83-years-old, he is battling cancer and in the toughest fight of his life," Cardona emphasized.
Fox News Digital reached out to a Biden spokesman for comment, but did not receive a response at the time this story was published.
Paul Steinhauser covers the national campaign trail from coast to coast for Fox News
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
Joe Biden is the sitting president of the United States, and his own party doesn't want him on the trail. That’s not a spin line, it’s just the schedule. Barack Obama and Kamala Harris are out stumping for endangered Democrats while Biden keeps a light calendar and sticks to choreographed appearances. Most Democratic candidates aren't exactly begging for his company.
The message is unmistakable. They know he’s a liability. They know the Biden brand is hurting their chances in places that actually decide the majority. So they trot out the last Democratic president, who can still draw a crowd, and the vice president, who gets to play the future without having to answer for the present. You don't hide someone who helps you win.
This is also a quiet confession. For years we were told Biden was a master legislator, a unifier, the guy who would steady the country. Now he can’t even be trusted to do a few retail stops in a swing district. Actions speak louder than campaign emails. If he were an asset, they would use him. They aren't.
And here's the part worth remembering in November. Democratic operatives are making a calculated choice to sideline their own president. They'd rather run with Obama's ghost than Biden's record. That tells you everything about the policies they're defending and the judgment they're asking you to trust. When your own party hides you, that's not a strategy. That's an admission.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.