I’d publicly and vocally support the opponent - any kid of mine who turned Right Wing would already be openly estranged from me, anyway, so it wouldn’t exactly hurt. Unless the RW in the OP is somehow diluted from the current anti-woman, anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-non-religious, anti-science, anti-non-White, anti-social-equality ideology of the Right.
Some people treat politics like a game, a way of keeping score, or like it doesn’t really matter, but it’s not and it does. It’s very much a real struggle. I’m Left Wing to the core, I don’t tolerate RW friends, why should I tolerate RW family? The RW wants to destroy everything I hold dear. Again.
I’d proudly pull the lever for my kid’s opponent, if my kid is RW. I’d also publicly make statements like “looks like I didn’t get my vasectomy soon enough, maybe this’ll make up for that oversight” as I did it, too. “Blood is thicker than water” is a dangerous belief.
In the OP scenario, I would have already spent the 2 years before Iowa strongly discouraging him/her in private and making it perfectly clear s/he could not count on me. Once the actual race is in and they insisted in ignoring my wisdom, I’d probably make a name for myself turning a firehose on any media trampling my lawn trying to get a reaction from me for or against him/her. Biggest news about me would be that I’m fiercely defending my privacy vs my offspring’s public fugure status and the mystery as to why don’t I say jacksquat about their campaign.
…and meanwhile let them report on the mystery about who is the unknown blogger on TOR that keeps hammering the candidate
I thought I was the deciding vote, as per the OP’s last question.
…and no, I don’t think so, voters often tend to view candidates who don’t come from “perfect” families as flawed, somehow. That undecided 10% from the first set of questions is going to wonder why we’re estranged, and hopefully listen to the reasons I disagree with my daughter (Note, I’d only make that vasectomy remark as and if I were casting the deciding vote, not while I was just campaigning for the other guy. By that point it’d be the end of voting day and what I say isn’t going to influence anyone. Up to then, my campaigning would be issues-based. I can, actually, be quite diplomatic if I need to be.)
