One data point: we’re visiting our daughter in rural Oregon. She says many former Trump voters are leaving MAGA to support Kennedy. I’m optimistic that the segment of Trump voters who simply wanted to express contempt for everything are going to Kennedy because Trump is just too much of a fucking asshole.
That would be sweet, if Kennedy can draw off a significant percentage of the loons from Trump nationwide.
JFK Jr is central to a lot of Qanon conspiracy theories. Maybe he will get their support through that.
They’re not even pretending anymore in RFK Jr’s camp:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/08/politics/rfk-jr-new-york-biden-trump/index.html
Rita Palma, the Kennedy campaign’s state director in New York, has repeatedly made the case, including in a meeting with Empire State Republicans, that efforts to put Kennedy on the ballot in New York will help “get rid of Biden,” which she called her “No. 1 priority,” and make it easier for Trump to win the historically Democratic state.
“The only way that Trump can even, remote possibility of taking New York is if Bobby is on the ballot. If it’s Trump vs. Biden, Biden wins. Biden wins six days, seven days a week. With Bobby in the mix, anything can happen,” Palma said in a video of the meeting with Republicans in New York viewed by CNN.
“The only way for him, for Bobby, to shake it up and to get rid of Biden is if he’s on the ballot in every state, including New York,” she continued.
Granted, she’s talking to Republicans who she wants to vote for RFK Jr, but let’s just say what’s really going on, is that RFK Jr is NOT running as an Independent by any means, he’s running as a deliberate spoiler, and I would wager 1000 quatloos that he’d be happy running as a “mainstream” Republican presidential candidate in 2028 at this rate.
Trump is an anti-establishment crank. Kennedy is an anti-establishment crank. There are a lot of anti-establishment cranks voters. And if Shanahan throws enough money in the race to get wide ballot access, and her ticket’s viewpoint known to even low info voters, the crank vote is split, and Biden wins.
Wrong? Maybe. But the above sounds fairly good to me this morning.
Factoids for and against this can be found here:
I think you’re on the money, FWIW.
I also think that RFK Jr.'s polling numbers are mirages, and that he’s a hammerlock to come in at less than 5% of the popular vote.
And a decent percentage of those are people who would never vote for either party.
In some swing states, though, that could be devastating.
I think we’re mostly quibbling about whether he’ll steal more (D) votes as a protest on Israel and other issues, or if he’ll steal more (R) votes on being … whatever term you want to apply to the lunatic fringe that is currently passing for MAGA.
(Much self-editing to keep it vaguely P&E).
As he becomes ever more obviously affiliated with MAGA points, I’d like to think it would be stealing the latter, but I’m more worried that some of the voters who, in 2020 were given the choice of Biden and Trump, while COVID losses were fresh, and they were tired of Trump and reluctantly voted Biden, could now vote RFK Jr and say they voted against both, but that could be enough to tip it to Trump.
But, if I had to guess, that’s an unspeakably slim portion of the population. But with margins as tight as they are, it’s another worry.
There are third party candidates in every election though. Back in 2016 when I was a recovering conservative becoming disillusioned with the Republicans for embracing Trump and all the lunacy he represented, I refused to vote for him, but I wasn’t ready to support a Democrat either. (Seeing Trump as president made me into a Democrat; well, other things did too but that was the big one.) So I voted third party, knowing I was effectively throwing my vote away but I didn’t want to support either major candidate.
People in a situation like that don’t need RFK Jr on the ballot to make that kind of protest vote. They’ll vote for a ham sandwich. I don’t think his candidacy poses that kind of danger, because it would happen anyway.
Wrong. RFKjrs votes are coming from Dems and Indys, not MAGAs- who will vote for trump even when he is in prison. Some nevertrumers Republicans might vote for RFKjr, true.
A November Siena College poll of voters in six battleground states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) found slightly more Democrats than Republicans (18% versus 16%) would back Kennedy Jr., indicating he could draw more votes from Biden than Trump.… Another poll, by Quinnipiac University in February, found Biden loses more points than Trump (11 versus eight) with Kennedy Jr., independent Cornel West and Green Party candidate Jill Stein on the ballot.
Without Kennedy Jr., West and Stein on the ballot, Biden would beat Trump by four points, but with them, Biden’s lead narrows to one point, the Quinnipiac poll found—similarly, a December Reuters/Ipsos survey found Trump’s lead over Biden widens from two points to five when Kennedy Jr. is on the ballot, and a January Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found Trump expands his lead over Biden from six to eight points with Kennedy Jr. on the ballot.
The whole idea of RFKjrs run is to let trump win.
Yes, and youth and indy voters going 3rd party or staying home let trump win.
Most Democrats had no idea what RFK Jr stood for when those polls were taken. The Biden campaign will make as clear as possible to Democrats how crazy and Trumpian he is. I have little doubt the purpose of his campaign is to hello Trump, but on voting day it could be the opposite. We can’t know just yet.
Trump hellos himself quite well, he doesn’t need any help.
Sometimes he comes up to himself with tears in his eyes and says to himself, “Sir…”
Rep Ro Khanna (D-CA-17) has asked Nicole Shanahan to step down as RFK’s VP nominee:
He believes the RFK ticket will hurt Biden, help Trump, and cause harm to causes Shanahan has historically supported.
Shanahan appears to be politely declining Khanna’s request.
Yes, but once in awhile the stars align and a fruitcake candidate actually makes a difference. It doesn’t happen often, but George Wallace peeled off 46 electoral votes in 1968 and Ross Perot got 19 million votes in 1992 (and even in 1996 he still got 9 million.) Not to mention Ralph Nader in 2000.
Given 50 states’ ballot access and enough money, strange things are possible.
That’s missing the point. The point being made was that a third party candidate was a danger solely because it gives someone an alternative who had already decided they weren’t going to vote for either major candidate. And the fact that there is always a third party candidate means that any particular candidacy doesn’t pose any greater danger than there always is in an election.
If there is a third party candidate who has a large impact because of who that candidate is, that’s a totally different thing entirely and has no relevance to the concept of people making a protest vote against the major candidates.
Heck, I myself voted for Perot in 1992, partly because of his VP candidate Stockdale.
RFK’s aide who suggested that voting for him would “get rid of Biden” has been sacked. Saying the loud part out loud? Is that a thing? And it sounds weird to refer to RFK Jr. as “Bobby.”
That’s a worrying headline…