Making a campaign appearance for the second time in two days, Barack Obama spoke at a rally today in Anaheim, California, to support seven Democratic congressional candidates running for office in districts that Hillary Clinton won in 2016.

The rally, Obama's first appearance on behalf of specific candidates, came a day after the former president spoke at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champlain. In that speech, Obama criticized President Trump and the Republican members of Congress in the most explicit terms since leaving office eighteen months ago.

"As a fellow citizen, not as an ex-president but as a citizen, I'm here to deliver simple message and that is that you need to vote because our democracy depends on it," Obama said on Friday. He also said that Mr. Trump was a "symptom, not the cause" of divisions in American society.

[...] Obama's appearance in Anaheim benefited Democrats running in the traditionally Republican Orange County. He spoke individually about each candidate -- Josh Harder, TJ Cox, Katie Hill, Gil Cisneros, Katie Porter, Harley Rouda and Mike Levin.

Obama made the case that the midterm elections were a chance to "restore sanity" by flipping the House of Representatives to Democratic control.