An Obama endorsement is overrated. Having just explained why an Obama endorsement is vital to Biden’s fortunes, let’s take up the counterargument: the former president’s lousy track record in elections when he’s not on the ballot.

Barack Obama has been a part of America’s last five federal elections. He won big in 2008 (almost 53% of the national vote) and 2012 (51%). But on three other occasions, Obama tried to rally voters, only to fail spectacularly each time.

In 2010, Obama pitched the nation’s congressional races as a defense of his eponymous health care plan. Democrats ended up losing 63 House seats – the party’s worst setback in over seven decades and almost double the average of House seats lost by an unpopular president in a midterm election.

In 2014, Obama tried to prevent the U.S. Senate from going Republican. Despite the White House’s assurances that the president could energize his party’s base, pro-Democratic voters under age-45 didn’t materialize, while older, pro-GOP voters did (voters 45-64 and 65-and-over made up only 54% of 2012’s electorate but a whopping 67% two years later).