Donald Trump’s election was a stinging rebuke for the president who pushed through transformational reforms on healthcare, Wall Street and the environment. | AP Photo White House Obama suffers brutal rebuke as America votes Trump

President Barack Obama said his legacy was on the ballot.

His legacy lost on Tuesday night.


Donald Trump’s election was a stinging rebuke for the president who pushed through transformational reforms on healthcare, Wall Street and the environment. And, especially for Democrats, it was all the more confounding given that his approval rating has rarely been higher — “paradoxical,” as former Obama strategist David Axelrod described it early Wednesday morning.

Unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, both she and Obama gambled that tethering her agenda to his rebounding personal popularity would help seal the progress he spent eight years battling for.

“My name may not be on the ballot, but our progress is on the ballot,” Obama told a gathering of black leaders in September, in a formulation he would deliver repeatedly throughout the fall as he stumped for Clinton. He ticked off his accomplishments: expanded health coverage, economic recovery and troops largely removed from harms’ way in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And with his approval rating hovering in the mid-fifties — his highest in four or 7 years, depending on the poll — Obama seemed like a powerful surrogate. But it didn’t seem to be enough to drive even his supporters to the polls, with Clinton losing at least four states that Obama won twice.

In fact, Democrats faced similarly disastrous results the last time Obama said his agenda, if not his name, was on the ballot.

"Make no mistake: These policies are on the ballot. Every single one of them," Obama said in October 2014, just before the midterms. Democratic strategists cringed, and with good reason: Obama’s approval rating was in one of its deepest trenches. A month later, his party lost its majority in the Senate.

Obama’s policies never achieved his level of popularity. His signature health law never cracked 50 percent approval in any Kaiser tracking poll — in October, Americans were evenly split, with 45 percent approving and disapproving of Obamacare.

Even as the unemployment rate dipped below 5 percent, affirming the recovery from the economic crisis Obama inherited, people didn’t feel it enough. The sense that the system was rigged for the rich and well-connected fueled populist campaigns on the left and right. Both Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders tapped into those same anxieties when they ran against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, another legacy item the president never fully sold to the public.

Obama’s former national security spokesman Tommy Vietor ruefully acknowledged the toll of that persistent resentment early Wednesday morning.

“We could explain for hours why there was not the legal authority to put these people in jail, or why we needed to bail out the banks to rescue our economy for the greater good,” Vietor said on a “Keepin’ It 1600” video stream. “But that stuff hurt and it pissed people off and they never let it go.”

But even as Obama’s policies failed to gain wide acceptance, his affable personal qualities — and a contrast with the checkered family lives of the people running to replace him — boosted his approval ratings.

“They see the President as somebody who actually can be a role model to our kids,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in October. It wasn’t long after tapes emerged of Trump boasting that he could grope women because he was famous, followed by Republican counter-charges about Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct.

“The public’s appraisal of the president’s character is one that even in the most difficult times has been pretty durable,” Earnest added.

Durable, but evidently not transferable.

Obama’s circle grew increasingly despondent as the results became clear.

“My country is a different place than I thought it was when I woke up this morning,” tweeted Bill Burton, a veteran spokesman of Obama’s 2012 campaign and White House.

My country is a different place than I thought it was when I woke up this morning. — Bill Burton (@billburton) November 9, 2016





Of Obama himself, said Axelrod, “I'm sure he's deeply disappointed tonight.”

He continued, during a Wednesday morning CNN appearance, “I haven't spoken to him. But he campaigned very, very vigorously. He felt very strongly about it.”

Axelrod predicted that Obama would meet with Trump on Thursday to facilitate a smooth handoff of power. Indeed, Obama has promised to do all he can to oversee an organized transition no matter who wins.

Brent Griffiths contributed to this report.

