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.
I think Sea Change is what you are thinking however Seed Change might be a good idea as well.
The way to change things in this country is through voting, so if you want to elect Obama/Biden the thing to do is make sure all voters really know what they will do if elected and then be certain these people vote and their votes are counted correctly.
I’m tired of McCain’s Vietnam sychobabble, we all have memories about the 1960s and Vietnam.
Hate? Hate is SO yesterday.
One hundred years from now they’ll teach University courses about the 2008 Presidential Election. What is happening now is a seed change, nothing short of a revolution.
Quietly, in basements and dens around America an army of MILLIONS of Bloggers and fellow travellers is no longer responding to the media – considering what the media puts in front of us – considering the facts they have fed us on which we had to base out thoughts – what has happened this year FOR THE FIRST TIME IN WORLD HISTORY is that the PEOPLE have actually turned the tables and WE THE PEOPLE, not the media, CONTROL the agenda and the information available to the people. The media have been reduced to following our lead; our findings of facts and the Blogsphere’s exposure of Sarah Palin’s appalling background is a prime example.
The REVOLUTION is HERE, we are not only fighting it we are WINNING it – not with guns and rocks and blood – but with facts and communication and an Internet with a million points of light, operating at the speed of light – each point of which can take facts off the net and add to them.
For the first time in my adult life – America has a REAL chance at change. God Bless America!
At this rate, nothing will change the cycle in Obama’s favor. The campaign has been silenced into weakness, and the media is in love with Palin. No fundraising number is going to take attention away from hate speak.
I think Sen. Obama will sign on as a sponsor to the gang of ten energy bill. This will allow him to box in McCain on oil drilling, since the bill supports limited additional drilling but also a tax increase for oil companies. This would seriously limit the Republican arguments about oil drilling, but McCain can’t support the tax increase.
Sponsoring this bill would also show how Obama is acting in a bipartisan fashion. I wouldn’t be suprised if he announces support for this compromise as soon as tomorrow.
Why in god’s name would Obama want Powell’s endorsement? Is that supposed to be a good thing? The only things a Powell endorsement would signal is that (1) Obama is part of the Washington establishment and (2) when its to his benefit, he thinks the judgement of people who supported the invasion of Iraq is just peachy.
I would think a Powell endorsement would be a less than happy development.