Obama to the Rescue? Biden 'Leans More on His Former Boss' Ahead of US Midterm Elections in 2022

The White House said in a statement earlier this year that POTUS and former US President Barack Obama "regularly" speak about a "range of issues" as well as personal matters of mutual interest.

It appears US President Joe Biden continues "to lean more on his former boss Barack Obama" amid POTUS' nosediving approval ratings, Fox News reports.

The latest example may be witnessed during the 44th US president's upcoming participation in the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), due to kick off in Glasgow, Scotland, on 31 October.

Obama will attend the 13-day gathering to reportedly highlight the "important progress" that has purportedly been made in terms of climate change since the Paris Agreement took effect on 4 November 2016.

Biden will also take part, but it remains unclear whether Obama will participate in any meetings or events with Biden or his administration officials.

In a separate development, Obama will campaign with Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe in the state capital city of Richmond on 23 October, ahead of elections in Virginia on November 2nd.

Additionally, the ex-POTUS upheld Biden's $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill during an interview with ABC News last month.

Obama said he thinks "anybody who pretends that it's a hardship for billionaires to pay a little bit more in taxes so that a single mom gets childcare support […] that's an argument that is unsustainable".

Fox News, meanwhile, noted that it's unclear "whether the duo's upcoming overlap [at the COP26] is part of a broader campaign to win more support for Biden and the Democratic Party ahead of the 2022 midterm elections". The broadcaster added that the White House had not "immediately respond to an inquiry from Fox News".

This comes after a new opinion poll by Quinnipiac University showed that Biden's job approval rating had slipped to 38%, down from a high of over 50% in mid-February and a low of 42% three weeks ago.

The survey also revealed that more than half of Americans, 55%, said that they think the Biden administration is incompetent in running the government. Some 39% of respondents approve of Biden's handling of the US economy and only 37% approve of the administration's tax policy.

In terms of foreign policy, the poll showed that just 34% of Americans give Biden's work a thumb up, with 23% approving of his handling of the situation with migrants at the US-Mexican border.

Previous polls indicated that POTUS' popularity began to slide following a bumpy summer in the United States, which saw a new spike in coronavirus infections, the chaotic US troop exit and evacuation from Afghanistan, as well as a rough hurricane season, along with wildfires.

In his first interview since the 3 November 2020 election, then- President-elect Biden pledged that his presidency would not be “a third Obama term” as he promised to represent the full spectrum of the US and the country’s Democratic Party.

“We face a totally different world than we faced in the Obama-Biden administration. President Trump has changed the landscape”, Biden argued at the time.