The former first lady says she has no interest in the job, but that hasn’t stopped GOP speculation that she’ll replace Biden in 2024

WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 07: Former First Lady Michelle Obama delivers remarks at a ceremony to unveil the Obama’s official White House portraits at the White House on September 7, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Obama’s portraits will be the first official portraits added to the White House Collection since President Obama held an unveiling ceremony for George W. Bush and Laura Bush in 2012. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images — WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 07: Former First Lady Michelle Obama delivers remarks at a ceremony to unveil the Obama’s official White House portraits at the White House on September 7, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Obama’s portraits will be the first official portraits added to the White House Collection since President Obama held an unveiling ceremony for George W. Bush and Laura Bush in 2012. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

By Amie Parnes and Nicole Gaudiano

Anyone who knows former First Lady Michelle Obama would never say she’d run for president. Obama wrote in her 2018 book “Becoming” that she had no intention of running for office, “ever.”

“No way,” one source close to the former first lady responded when asked if she would ever run for president. “Never ever. Not a chance in Hell.”

“Guaranteed, no,” Oprah Winfrey said during a conversation with Obama released on Netflix in April.

And yet, there is still a hard core group of people on the right who either believe Obama will run or want to believe it.

“Yes, I do,” former Trump White House advisor Roger Stone told The Messenger when asked if he still believes she’ll run, after he made that claim publicly in July. He doesn’t buy it when she says she’s not interested in politics or the job. “Exactly what you would expect her to be saying, if she were planning to be a candidate,” he wrote in a text to The Messenger.

The theme has emerged on conservative political and social media sites, with a flurry of activity over the past several months, said Peter Montgomery, director of Right Wing Watch, a project of People for the American Way.

“BREAKING: Michelle Obama Running For POTUS,” reads the subject line of “The Beltway Report” email that landed in Montgomery’s inbox on Nov. 16. Another headline Montgomery spotted from December 14: “The Truth Comes Out About Michelle Obama Right Before Entering Election”

“The right is obsessed with the Obamas,” Montgomery said. “This, I think, is just an effort to keep riling up the base with someone that the right hates by making it seem like it’s a threat. That’s the only rationale I can imagine.”

The narrative has gained steam on the right as Biden’s poll numbers are underwater and some polls show him tied or trailing former President Donald Trump, even as he faces massive legal challenges. The theory is that Democrats will get worried about Biden as a candidate and that Michelle Obama will swoop in to replace him, sometime around the Democratic Convention.

Though Obama has repeatedly rejected the idea, conservative, pro-Trump media figures have claimed she’ll run since at least 2019, and the trend has picked up again this year, said Laura Keiter, of Media Matters For America. “Anecdotally, it seems like this conspiracy theory is being pushed by one-off individuals scattered across outlets rather than one specific outlet pushing this the most,” she wrote in an email.

If Obama had any interest, that might be a problem for Republicans. Michelle Obama had a 68% favorability rating when she left the White House in January 2017, and she was Gallup’s “most admired woman” from 2017 to 2020. She topped the field in a fantasy 2024 presidential election poll by The Messenger/Harris Poll of high-profile people who are not actually running.

Some Democrats have, indeed, privately expressed concerns about the president’s ability to compete in a general election and also question his ability to govern in a second term because he would be 82-years-old on Inauguration Day. They have also wondered if Vice President Kamala Harris could successfully step in the event that Biden cannot.

Democrats have tossed around names of would-be challengers including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.). Some Democrats have also wondered if Obama would be the strongest candidate – but wondering is about as far as the thinking goes.

“Michelle Obama would be one of the most qualified people on planet Earth to do anything but I don't think it's real and why would she want to do that to herself,” one Democratic strategist said.

“It's the savior complex,” the strategist added. “People are looking for a shooting star, a cure-all. It's a response to the challenging moment we're in. It's this thing that comes out of nowhere and will fix us. But it's not realistic at all.”

When it comes to the idea that Obama will run, Republicans are “in the thralls of a fever dream,” said Maria Cardona, a Democratic strategist close to the Biden campaign.

While Cardona acknowledged that voters are always throwing Obama’s name out there – “That happened the day after she left the White House” – she said Democrats should be laser focused on working to reelect Biden and ignoring the noise from Republicans.

“Biden beat Trump once,” she said. “He can do it again.”

Asked to comment, a Biden a campaign official wrote in an email: "We do not have a comment on The Messenger lifting up debunked conspiracy theory".

Obama has tried, in the strongest language possible, to shoot down the idea of running for president – all in vain. Oprah Winfrey, her foot kicking as she spoke, sheepishly asked the question during her conversation with Obama last December that was released on Netflix in April.

“At no point have I ever said, ‘I think I want to run,’ ever,” Obama said then. “So, I’m just wondering, does what I want have anything to do with it?”

Apparently not. The idea still has traction among Republicans with a following.

“I still say it’ll be Michelle O’ #2024Election,” former GOP Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin wrote in September on X. “Biden’s out.”

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in September claimed on his podcast that Michelle Obama running is the scenario that’s “most likely and most dangerous” if Democrats are seeking a different candidate by their August convention. “The Democrat kingmakers jettison Joe Biden and parachute in Michelle Obama,” he said, adding that the choice avoids infuriating Black women or other top contenders for the office.

Vernon Jones, a former Georgia House of Representatives member, in a Dec. 18 post on X: “Will Michelle Obama run for President in 2024? Speculation is mounting!”

Far-right radio host Todd Starnes, who was reportedly fired from Fox News after agreeing that Democrats may worship a demon god, also said on his radio show in September that Obama will be the Democratic nominee.

“And if that happens, Republicans are going to have to get ready for a war,” Starnes said. “I mean, really. It’s going to take every single Republican and independent vote to get Donald Trump across the finish line if it’s Michelle Hussein Obama. Because she will be a formidable foe out on the campaign trail.”

While small outlets have pushed this narrative, it’s also come up on Fox News. Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, former National Economic Council director under Trump, mused in September about Biden’s “problem” with her, saying “I’m just hearing this from everywhere.” And Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy has been promoting the idea that Biden is a “placeholder,” that the Obamas are “the real power behind the throne,” and that signs point to Michelle Obama “waiting in the wings.”

One of those indicators? That Michelle Obama has talked about menopause. “She’s appealing to suburban white women who are a very important swing vote,” Campos-Duffy said in May on Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime. “This is my theory.”

Asked how and when he envisions this happening, Stone told The Messenger that Biden could decline to run late in the process and Democrats at their National Convention could turn to Obama, “their strongest potential candidate” who could “reluctantly agree to a ‘draft.’” The only way the Democratic Party could feasibly bypass Vice President Kamala Harris, who would be traditionally next in line for the nomination, is by nominating a woman of color who is “far more popular than Harris,” he argued.

“Michelle Obama would be an extraordinarily formidable candidate and were she to be the Democratic nominee her candidacy would have to be taken extraordinarily seriously,” Stone wrote.

Some Republican strategists however poured cold water on the idea of Obama running for president. But they acknowledged why the idea excites those in their party.

“The specter of her running is good for fundraising. As a bogeyman she's almost as effective as Hillary Clinton,” said Republican strategist John Feehery.

Still, he added, “Michelle is seen as another 4 years or 8 years of Obama so I think that's how I think they'd rather run against Joe Biden than anyone right now. Republicans don't really hate Joe Biden but they really dislike Barack Obama.”

Former Trump White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer raised the question on X on Dec. 15 to promote his show with his guest, former Trump White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon. “Will Michelle Obama be the nominee for the Democratic Party?” he asked. But during the program, Spicer called the idea “nuts” and Bannon said it would be “extremely remote.”

Montgomery said he suspects Trump’s legal problems and his claims of political persecution could be serving as a trigger for the online notion of the Obamas pulling the strings and that Michelle will “come in and slide into the White House.” Other common conspiracy theories among fringe social media posters are that Michelle Obama is actually a man or that the Obamas are actually running the White House. Some conservative pundits also find unflattering pictures of her and compare her to former First Lady Melania Trump.

“There’s probably a racist element to it,” he said. “It’s part of the right-wing narrative that Democrats are socialists, are communists, they want to undermine the country.”

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Why The Conspiracy Theory that Michelle Obama Will Run for President Won’t Go Away