For a while there, the independent ticket of ex-Democrats Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Nicole Shanahan seemed to be taking crucial votes away from Democrat Joe Biden, at least as indicated by comparing three-way and five-way (with Cornel West and Jill Stein) polls to head-to-head matchups of the incumbent and Donald Trump. Now, even as Biden has all but erased his polling deficit against Trump, he’s getting some more good news in surveys that include other candidates.
Two recent major national polls show Biden running better in a five-way than a two-way race. According to NBC News, Biden moves from two points down to two points up when the non-major-party candidates are included. In the latest Marist poll, Biden leads Trump by three points head-to-head and by five points in a five-way race. Since left-bent candidates West and Stein are pulling 5 percent in the former poll and 4 percent in the latter (presumably taking very few votes from Trump), you have to figure Kennedy is beginning to cut into the MAGA vote to an extent that should get Team Trump’s attention. And it has, NBC News reports:
“Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he’s confident that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will pull more votes away from President Joe Biden than from him — a net win for the Republican’s candidacy.
“’He is Crooked Joe Biden’s Political Opponent, not mine,’Trump wrote on Truth Social late last month. ‘I love that he is running!’
“Behind closed doors, however, Trump is less sure. A Republican who was in the room with Trump this year as he reviewed polling said Trump was unsure how Kennedy would affect the race, asking the other people on hand whether or not Kennedy was actually good for his candidacy.”
Politico notes that Kennedy is drawing higher favorability numbers from Republican voters than from Democratic ones, which could indicate a higher ceiling for RFJ Jr. among Trump defectors. And it’s generally assumed from his past performances that there is a lower ceiling on Trump’s support than on Biden’s; he needs to be able to win with significantly less than a majority of the popular vote, as one Republican told Politico:
“’If the Trump campaign doesn’t see this as a concern, then they’re delusional,’ Republican consultant Alice Stewart said. ‘They should be looking at this from the standpoint that they can’t afford to lose any voters — and certainly not to a third-party candidate that shares some of [Trump’s] policy ideas.’”
One likely reason that Kennedy could be appealing to Republicans is the residual effect from the positive attention he received from conservative media when he was running against Biden in the Democratic primaries; his identification with anti-vaccine conspiracy theories also resonates more positively on the right side of the political spectrum than the left. So it’s in the interest of Team Trump to begin telling the former president’s sympathizers that RFK Jr. is actually a lefty, and that started happening recently, as the New York Times reported: “Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, pointed in particular to Mr. Kennedy’s views on climate change and the environment, writing on his social media site that Mr. Kennedy was more ‘radical Left’ than Mr. Biden.”
The idea, of course, is not only to discourage potential Trump voters from drifting toward the independent candidate, but to encourage potential Biden voters to consider a Kennedy vote.
If Kennedy continues to draw votes from both Biden and Trump, each of their campaigns will need to make a strategic decision about how to deal with him: Do you ignore him and count on the usual fade in support afflicting non-major-party presidential candidates as Election Day nears, or do you attack him as too far left (if you’re Trump) or too far right (if you’re Biden) and try to make him a handicap to your major-party opponent? The more aggressive approach has become common among Democrats seeking to intervene in Republican primaries (or in the recent case of the California Senate race, a nonpartisan top-two primary) by loudly attacking candidates they’d prefer to face in the general election, encouraging Republicans to flock to the supposed menace to progressivism. This kind of tactic — if deployed with some serious dollars — could have an effect on Kennedy’s base of support.
Certainly Trump seems to be considering it. With his usual practice of saying the quiet part out loud, Trump opined: “If I were a Democrat, I’d vote for RFK Jr. every single time over Biden, because he’s frankly more in line with Democrats.”
Trying to minimize losses to Kennedy and maximize opposite-party votes for Kennedy could become a routine practice down the stretch. Where and by whom this strategy is pursued will depend in part on where RFK Jr. is ultimately on the ballot. Right now he has nailed down ballot access in just two states, Utah and Michigan. CBS News reports the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket is close to securing a spot on the November ballot in a number of other states:
“Kennedy’s campaign says it has completed signature gathering in seven other states in addition to Utah and Michigan — Nevada, Idaho, Hawaii, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Nebraska and Iowa.
“The super PAC supporting Kennedy, American Values 2024, says it has collected enough signatures in Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina.”
Coping with Kennedy could become a game of three-dimensional chess between the Biden and Trump campaigns. But if it begins to look like RFK Jr. has become an existential threat to Democrats or to Republicans, you can bet they’ll go medieval on him without even a moment’s hesitation.
No Republican has ever lost Ohio and won the Presidency likely for two very good reasons I can think of:
1. Ohio is worth 20 EV making it one of the biggest swing states. You really can’t write off 20 EVs and have a lot of chance at the whole thing.
2. Ohio is a slightly right to the middle of the road state and any Republican not carrying it will also likley be loosing many other states.
NO causal relationship with the Ohio thing. It’s just a battleground state. 3 seperate influences, Farm Belt, Industrial Midwest, and appalachia. It is true that no Republican has won without carrying Ohio. But that just means Ohio is illustrative of trends in battleground states and not a causal agent.
As other states gain population and Ohio loses it, this relationship may break down.
As far as the 4 big states, 2 are blue (Michigan, Pennsylvania) The other two are up in the air (Ohio, FL) I’d like to see Kerry take em both early so I can go to bed.
Based on your comments I have told everyone I know that Kerry will win. I just hope it’s not hopeful spin.
There is a very real possibility that Bush will lose the EV and win the popular.
Oh, the Gods are nothing if not amused.
cheers.
If Kerry carries three out of four of those battleground states or more, then even if he loses WI, he seems to be leading in Iowa, he would win. Is it true that Kerry might carry Arkansas? That seems unlikely.
On the Osama tape, which could determine the outcome of the election, it is curious how the right has had NO problem proclaiming without condemnation in the media and insinuating in the campaign that Osama favors Kerry. Krauthammer (in the Washington Post a few weeks ago) and now Safire (in the NY Times) and lately — with a flap from the Kerry camp — FOX have insisted WITHOUT EVIDENCE that this is so. But now there is evidence of the opposite but liberals are squeemish or dutifully cowed. (Kerry, unlike on flipflop, where both he and the mainstream media, including liberals, were all but silent for 5 months, only raising the issue AFTER the Republican Convention, obviously can’t speak to this issue. On flipflop, Jonathan Chait devastated the spin, then went on to explain away press silence (none dare say ‘justifying the lying’) on the issue.
Here’s a letter on the Osama tape that I sent to the NY Times. Like my last 50 letters, they surely won’t print this one either. But progressives really should have forced the mainstream media to confront this issue:
To the editor:
William Safire’s “Osama Casts His Vote” (op-ed, Nov 1) is remarkable for brazenly levelling the potent standard Republican charge that Al Qaeda released the tape to help Kerry, but then diverts attention to other subjects without making any substantive argument to back his point. Using a semantic method of argument, that bin Laden is “echoing” the Kerry campaign in suggesting that Bush is deceptive is itself a transparent sleight of hand — as if bin Laden could not possibly have gotten that bizarre notion anywhere else. But then, to top off the argument, he claims, as do all Republican and many Democratic pundits, that the tape helps Bush substantially.
So bin Laden releases a tape certain to help Bush in order to help Kerry? The more powerful argument, meekly given short shrift in passing by Maureen Dowd in “Will Osama Help W.?” (op-ed Oct 31), that “some intelligence experts suggest” that Osama prefers Bush for the latter’s foolish belligerence, fits the facts of the situation. Dowd also understates the case: Bush has failed to pursue Al Qaeda full force since the Afghanistan War, while also handing jihadism “Christmas” in the form of the Iraq war. Why wouldn’t and doesn’t bin Laden prefer Bush, a preference consistent with his actions?
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I know that this is an uncomfortable issue, but the playing field has been one-sided, and, as in flipflop, this could decide the election. Even if Kerry, in spite of all this and the distortions of the Matt Bai Oct 10 article that became the theme for the last three weeks of the Republican campaign, manages to win, in a truly level playing field, the Dems should have been able to take the White House and the Senate, and put the Repubs in danger of losing the House. But as things have gone, a reverse of 1994 just goes against the grain of the machine agenda.
You note that “no Republican has ever won a presidential election without carrying Ohio.” Indeed, I have heard this factoid repeatedly in various media reports over the past few weeks. In most reports, there is an implied causal relationship between Repubs winning Ohio and winning the White House–a causal relationship I find questionable at best. (Why Ohio–i.e., what is the special relationship between Ohio and Repubs? I also note that I have heard no report concerning the relationship between Ohio–or any other state–and Dems winning the White House.)
Anyway, just wondering if you can shed some light on whether there is in your mind any such causal relationship, or whether this is more a curiosity than anything else.
Thanks for the insightful blog.
I share your analysis, but you are clearly following assuptions that undecideds do not swing to the incumbent. Are your sure, given the emphasis on terrorism/security that seems to trump the Iraq war and economic/health care issues.
It looks like the polls are still over sampling republicans in the national tallies. The state polls seem to be more accurate. What about the Democracy Corp poll…any news yet. Also, the Repubs are still trying to go to the appellate court for the State of Ohio to appeal the decision by the lower court. Is there any news? Thanks for these wonderful and insightful updates on the Polls.