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Stumping for Hillary Clinton, Obama will urge his supporters to get out the vote

WASHINGTON >> One of President Barack Obama’s top priorities during his last months in office is to help make sure that Hillary Clinton succeeds him. To do so, the president will make at least a dozen campaign appearances in battleground states from now to Election Day on Nov. 8.

Obama’s task is not to try to persuade independents or Republicans that they should choose Clinton over Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, according to White House officials and the Clinton campaign. Instead, he will urge his most enthusiastic supporters — young voters and African-Americans — to register or to be sure to turn out to vote for Clinton.

“The president’s focus is on getting the Obama coalition to the polls,” said Jen Psaki, the White House communications director.

Most of his appearances will be timed to coincide with voter registration deadlines and the start of early voting, White House officials said. On Sept. 13, for example, Obama will appear at a rally in Philadelphia, four weeks before the last day that Pennsylvanians can register to vote.

Neither the Clinton campaign nor the White House has announced any more appearances, in part because they want to be able to send Obama where they think they need him most. But his visits are likely to be concentrated in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Nevada and Iowa, campaign officials said. Obama will generally campaign without Clinton.

His focus on turnout reflects concerns that while polling suggests Clinton has broad support from the same blocs of voters who twice elected Obama, they are not as enthusiastic about her candidacy and will need prodding to visit the voting booth.

“To say that Obama’s significantly more favorably perceived than Hillary is an understatement,” Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster, said in an interview. “He can turn out the Democratic base and maybe get a bit more leverage with white Republicans with higher levels of education, and that’s all you’d really want to ask him to do.”

Obama has been among the most effective critics of Trump, shifting between humorous needling and incredulous outrage at the Republican candidate’s positions. But as with his speech at the Democratic convention, Obama intends to spend much of his time praising Clinton rather than criticizing Trump, Psaki said.

“The president knows from his own experience that the American people want to vote for someone and not just against someone else,” Psaki said. “He feels he has a unique vantage point and microphone to convey to the American people why she’s the right person to succeed him.”

Obama is spending so much of the next two months campaigning for Clinton despite polls suggesting that she is an solid favorite to win because, he said earlier this month, Democrats tend to oscillate between full-blown panic and dangerous complacency.

“And what I’d like us to do is veer somewhere in between those two extremes,” he said at an Aug. 15 fundraiser on Martha’s Vineyard. “If we do our job, then Hillary will be elected president of the United States. But if we do not do our jobs, then it’s still possible for her to lose.”

Vice President Joe Biden will also hit the campaign trail about twice a week stumping not only for Clinton but for Democratic Senate candidates in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri, said Kate J. Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for Biden.

On Thursday, Biden will campaign in Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio, and on Monday will be in Pittsburgh.

Biden has warned that Trump has already made the world a more dangerous place, and he intends to continue making the case that Trump is not qualified to be commander in chief, Bedingfield said.

So far, the process for scheduling appearances for Obama and Biden has begun with administration officials telling the Clinton campaign what dates the president and vice president are free, and the campaign telling the White House where they want them to go. In late September and early October, that may be Iowa, where early voting begins Sept. 29, a campaign official said.

Obama is an unusually good advocate for Clinton in Iowa, where the president defeated Clinton in the 2008 caucuses and which he carried in 2008 and 2012.

“Iowa is a place where the president has a special connection, where he feels at home when his plane lands,” Psaki said Tuesday.

Early voting begins in Ohio on Oct. 12, in Nevada on Oct. 22, in Florida as early as Oct. 24 and in North Carolina on Oct. 27 — dates that could factor in coming up with a schedule for Obama’s visits, according to one campaign official. There is only absentee voting in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania before Election Day.

Clinton’s eagerness for the president’s help is a rarity among recent candidates. Al Gore decided against extensive appearances by Bill Clinton, which may have cost him the 2000 election. In 1988, Ronald Reagan campaigned infrequently for George H.W. Bush, and in 1960, Dwight Eisenhower offered little support for Richard Nixon.

Obama’s get-out-the-vote efforts for Hillary Clinton also could benefit other Democrats in reclaiming the Senate majority and making inroads in the House of Representatives. And Obama is likely to shoehorn fundraisers for the Democratic Party and individual candidates into more of his schedule.

“The president will continue to look for ways to support down-ticket candidates, and he has told us he wants to make that a priority,” Psaki said.

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