Barack Obama has spent decades making basketball part of his public identity. Now the former US president has taken that relationship with the sport in a distinctly political direction, using a one-on-one basketball video to intervene in one of the contests ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Obama has endorsed Iowa state representative Josh Turek in his campaign for the US Senate, but the manner of the endorsement was hardly conventional. Instead of appearing behind a podium or releasing a traditional campaign statement, Obama and Turek took to the basketball court and played a modified version of H-O-R-S-E, replacing the usual letters with I-O-W-A.
The sporting element was more than a campaign gimmick. Turek represented the United States in wheelchair basketball at four Paralympic Games and won gold medals with Team USA in 2016 and 2020. He is now the Democratic nominee for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Joni Ernst and will face Republican congresswoman Ashley Hinson, who has received Donald Trump’s endorsement.
That combination has produced one of the more unusual intersections between elite sport and American politics this election cycle.
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Obama went back to the court
The video leaned heavily on Obama’s longstanding connection with basketball.
Rather than simply announcing his support for Turek, the former president competed against him on court while discussing Iowa, politics and Turek’s campaign. According to the Associated Press report on the endorsement, Obama joked that Turek had beaten him comfortably before turning directly to Iowa voters.
“Now the ball’s in your court, Iowa,” Obama said.
The format was carefully chosen. Turek’s identity as an athlete is central to his public profile, while basketball has followed Obama throughout his political career. During his presidency, he became known for pickup games involving staff members and former college players, and the new Obama Presidential Center in Chicago includes a professional-grade basketball court.
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Only days before the Turek video became public, Obama had used that same Presidential Center to welcome some of the biggest names in the WNBA.
Caitlin Clark, A’ja Wilson, Paige Bueckers and other WNBA All-Stars met the former president ahead of the league’s All-Star Game in Chicago. Clark later said Obama had spoken to her about handling extraordinary public attention at a young age and encouraged her not to allow the surrounding “nonsense” to diminish her enjoyment of basketball.
Basketball has therefore become unusually visible around Obama again in 2026.
This time, however, it is crossing directly into an election.
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A Paralympic champion enters national politics
Turek’s sporting background makes the endorsement especially unusual.
The Iowa Democrat competed in wheelchair basketball at four Paralympic Games and was part of the American teams that won gold in Rio in 2016 and Tokyo in 2021, the delayed 2020 Paralympics. His campaign biography therefore differs significantly from those of most candidates seeking a seat in the US Senate.
In his own account of the meeting, Turek described playing Obama as one of the most memorable moments of his life and placed it alongside his experiences representing the United States in Paralympic basketball.
Turek’s campaign has unsurprisingly attempted to maximise the sporting imagery. The basketball game provided a way of presenting his Paralympic background while simultaneously showcasing one of the Democratic Party’s most recognisable former presidents.
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Obama also has his own specific history with Iowa.
His victory in the state’s 2008 Democratic caucuses provided a major early breakthrough in the presidential campaign that eventually took him to the White House. He subsequently won Iowa in both the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. In the video with Turek, Obama explicitly referenced that history.
“I know a little something about winning Iowa,” he said, according to the Associated Press.
Trump is on the other side
There is another element that makes the sporting endorsement particularly intriguing.
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Turek’s Republican opponent Ashley Hinson has been endorsed by Donald Trump.
That means two former and current presidents with markedly different relationships with American sport are now attached to opposing candidates in the same Senate contest. Trump has increasingly placed himself at the centre of major sporting events during his second presidency, while Obama continues to be closely associated with basketball.
The contrast should not be overstated. Neither Trump nor Obama is on the ballot in Iowa, and endorsements do not determine election results.
But their involvement adds a national dimension to a race that already has an unusually strong sporting component.
On one side stands a Republican congresswoman supported by Trump. On the other is a former Paralympic basketball champion now being promoted by Obama through the sport that has perhaps been more closely associated with the former Democratic president than any other.
It is difficult to imagine many Senate campaigns in American history being introduced through a basketball game between a former president and a Paralympic gold medallist.
Obama is becoming more active before the midterms
The Turek appearance also offers a glimpse of Obama’s role in the 2026 election cycle.
The former president has begun becoming more visible on behalf of Democratic candidates ahead of November. Before supporting Turek, he appeared with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico in May, while the Iowa endorsement gives him another opportunity to intervene in a contest for Senate representation.
Obama’s presence remains politically significant because he has generally been selective about when and where he enters individual campaigns.
But the Turek video is notable for another reason. It demonstrates how sport can provide politicians with a different route into electoral messaging, particularly when the candidate involved has a genuine elite sporting career rather than merely posing alongside athletes.
The basketball is not incidental to Turek’s story.
It is the reason he represented his country four times at the Paralympics, won two gold medals and developed a profile long before seeking national political office.
Obama’s decision to make that background the centrepiece of his endorsement therefore turns the video into something more interesting than a celebrity political appearance.
Basketball becomes Obama’s political stage again
Obama has never hidden how much basketball means to him.
But in 2026, the sport is increasingly becoming part of his post-presidential public role.
He has opened his Presidential Center’s court to WNBA players, held conversations with some of the biggest names in women’s basketball and now used the game itself to endorse a candidate for the United States Senate.
Turek’s campaign provides a particularly natural setting for that strategy because basketball is not simply being added to make a political advertisement look more relaxed.
The man Obama is endorsing is himself one of the few American politicians who can point to four Paralympic appearances and two basketball gold medals before entering national politics.
And across the political divide stands a candidate backed by Donald Trump.
The result is an unusually pure crossover between American politics and elite sport: Obama on the basketball court, a Paralympic champion running for the Senate and Trump attached to the opposing campaign.
For once, describing politics as a contest being played out on the court is almost literal.
