Former President Barack Obama appeared in a live taping of Pod Save America on Thursday, celebrating the Democratic victories in Tuesday’s elections.
Obama flexed his political influence in the 2025 gubernatorial elections, successfully stumping for Govs.-elect Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) in the lead-up to Election Day. He drew massive crowds in Newark, New Jersey, and Norfolk, Virginia, as he encouraged voters to show up for each of the affordability-focused Democratic gubernatorial nominees.
After Sherrill and Spanberger each took their races by 13.5 and 14.4 percentage points, respectively, Obama joined Pod Save America, whose hosts are his former administration staffers, in a victory lap. The former president called on Democrats to keep the momentum moving forward.
“Tuesday was nice, but we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Obama said. “Our job is to say that we want everybody engaged, and we want to have a conversation about how to make sure that every person in this country is treated with dignity and respect.”
He called Spanberger, Sherrill, and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani “all part of a vision for the future.”
Just one year ago, Obama released a more somber statement following then-Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss to Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Obama, who stumped for Harris in 2024, wrote in a statement following Election Day, “This is obviously not the outcome we had hoped for.”
OBAMA SHOWS HIS STAR POWER STILL BURNS BRIGHT ONE YEAR ON FROM HARRIS DISAPPOINTMENT
He emphasized a message of unity, saying people need to make sure “that we’re getting along not in some cliche, phony way, but in a genuine, deep way.”
“We recognize, yeah, we have differences, and yes, there are fights that are going to have to be fought, but that deep down, there is something core in us that we have in common, that is extraordinary and that America, at its best, leans in to this notion of E pluribus unum,” Obama said.