Obama hits the campaign trail as Election Day nears

President Obama is finally hitting the campaign trail.

Obama will appear next Wednesday at a rally in Bridgeport, Conn., for Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy, who is locked in a tough reelection battle against Republican businessman Tom Foley, the White House announced Thursday.

{mosads}For Obama, it will be the first campaign appearance of the 2014 election cycle — evidence of the extent to which his eroding approval ratings have left the president a pariah for vulnerable Democratic candidates.

Vice President Biden and first lady Michelle Obama have been far more active in recent weeks, while the president has been mostly confined to closed-door fundraisers in liberal bastions like New York City and California. 

On Wednesday, Biden grabbed ice cream at a popular Portland, Ore., creamery with Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). The first lady has appeared in recent days for Democratic gubernatorial candidates, including Illinois’s Pat Quinn, Wisconsin’s Mary Burke, Michigan’s Mark Schauer, Massachusetts’s Martha Coakley, and Maine’s Mike Michaud.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Monday conceded that Obama “has not begun a sustained campaign of campaign-related activities.”

“But you know, the president has talked in a variety of settings, including in some of the fundraising settings that you have observed, that he feels strongly about how important it is for candidates who share his view about putting in place policies that benefit middle-class families be either elected or reelected to office,” Earnest said.