Posts are circulating online claiming that former first lady Michelle Obama is seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in 2024. These claims are false. Obama has given no indication that she intends to run for president during the present general election cycle.
The posts in question appear to derive from an article published on a site called The Western Journal and is headlined “TWJ Founder: The Democratic Party Just Confirmed Michelle Obama Will Be Its Nominee and Nobody Noticed.” The article, which is categorized on the site as “commentary,” quotes “The Western Journal’s own Floyd Brown” giving his opinion that “Michelle Obama is going to be the Democratic nominee.” “When they moved the convention to Chicago, that was their tell,” Brown claimed, “because they moved it to her hometown.” The article does not, however, cite or report any concrete evidence of Obama’s intention to seek the presidency. It even notes that ”Obama has addressed this question a number of times and each time has insisted that she has no interest in running for president.” Nevertheless, social media users have taken the article’s headline as a statement of fact rather than opinion.
Speculation and commentary surrounding Michelle Obama’s potential as a presidential candidate has been widespread across media outlets, but there is no evidence to suggest she will seek the presidency in 2024. A full list of the registered presidential candidates at the time of writing can be viewed here.
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