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.
This article was frustrating, in part because it ignores an important solution in one regard and perpetuates a myth in another.
It is true that large numbers or workers will tend to depress wages. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the government to set a floor in terms of wages and working conditions for all applicants to avoid businesses using the most exploitable labor. The various campaigns for an increased minimum wage are encouraging. Interestingly, the push to eliminate or alter tipped wages may even be more effective because immigrants are so heavily concentrated in that sector. Bring up working standards and wages will make these jobs more attractive to white and black workers and will help the Latino and Asian people working there now.
The issue of benefits needs more explanation to the general public. Illegal immigrants are NOT eligible for most Federal and state programs and this needs to be repeated as often as the truth that they are not even allowed to vote. Just like the renewed discussion of what an increase in the marginal tax really means, progressive need to counter the falsehoods that right wing and even centrist sources state. Why are there all these people speaking Spanish in line to receive Medicaid? It’s most likely because they are citizens. There are a few limited exceptions but I am waiting for compelling evidence that this loopholes are huge or there is fraud. From a federal government website message from 2014: “No federal funding to cover undocumented immigrants, except for payment for limited emergency services.” https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/outreach-and-enrollment/downloads/overview-of-eligibility-for-non-citizens-in-medicaid-and-chip.pdf
I do believe there is a limit to the overall level of immigration but I don’t think we have reached it if we are concerning about having enough workers to support the future economy as the article mentions. The ultimate lose-lose situation (which of course is a libertarian/Republican dream) is many workers with no benefits. Given that immigration from Mexico is down, lets focus on the later.
On the better benefits and salaries issue
1. Better salaries and benefits would increase the difference between wages in the US and other countries, thereby making it even more attractive. This is called the pull factor in immigration.
2. Labor laws in the US are poorly enforced, with workplace inspections in particular being very infrequent. This is why the article calls for enforcing labor laws against employers.
3. Levels of immigration are related to working conditions in the US and to enforcement of immigration laws. It may be true that current levels of immigration are low, but that doesn’t mean they will remain low forever. Conflicts in other countries are increasing and the number of potential immigrants is very high.
On the issue of the strain of immigration on public finances
1. This is probably the aspect that most liberals misunderstand and most pundit misrepresent. The working class understand how the strain works because they use public services more.
2. Immigrants may not be eligible to all public programs, but they are eligible to a substantial proportion either directly or indirectly.
3. Asylum seekers do receive some public benefits (including during the period their applicants are pending -which can take a lot of time and a very high proportion of which are rejected-).
4. More important the children of immigrants receive a lot of public benefits, whether documented or undocumented (eg public education). Ordinary people don’t make a distinction between documented immigrants and their undocumented or native born children. Native born children though have access to many programs that benefit their parents (ie their parents administer the money that their children receive).
5. Undocumented immigrants have indirect access to benefits for example via the use of hospital emergency rooms which are prohibited from turning away people.
6. Another example is jails/prisons, regardless of whether immigrants commit more crimes or not. And of course detention centers and supervision of absconding.
Most cost/benefit analysis for immigration don’t take into account the costs of native born children. The US is in this respect different to Europe where many countries don’t have soil citizenship.
I will agree with you that enforcement of existing labor laws is crucial. In fact, some of the campaigns against tipped wages stems from the fact enforcement of a minimum wage (if tips fall below that level) has not been sufficient in the service industry.
I don’t think increased wages and benefits will create much more of a pull because the rap against immigrants is that they settle for lower wages and thereby hurt all wage earners.
Finally, you seem to be saying that the issue of benefits really comes down to emergency services. Sorry, I am not in favor of banning people from ER rooms or schools. Putting aside all moral arguments, the latter will help create a permanent precariat class which is not in anyone’s interest. In fact, that is probably why Europe has more social tensions over immigration that the US.
Where the working class has succeeded in the past to improve things for themselves are the times they were able to mute ethnic, racial, and other differences (eg. skilled vs. unskilled). Pandering to resentments against others in the same economic boat or worse is not really a viable option. Yes, we have increased border security over the years (and probably a good thing) but that has not nipped xenophobia in the bud. Making sure there is a floor native and foreign born won’t fall through is a better answer all the way around.
That is the whole point of the article, which I don’t dispute.
The fact that the proportion of the foreign born is near an all time can’t be ignored. It has positive consequences electorally, but in policy terms it is more complicated.
I also agree that this is why Democrats must take both social and economic aspects equally seriously.
Let’s see what the House produces, if anything.
Shorter version: scapegoating immigrants is not fair or helpful.
My apologies for all the typos.
Why are “undocumented” immigrants undocumented? Because they are illegal immigrants. Speaking of their illegal conduct in euphemisms like “undocumented” or “unauthorized”, or ignoring the difference between legal immigrants and illegal ones, merely convinces the hearer that the speaker wants to evade the issue. If the Democrats want to speak credibly on this issue, the first thing they must do is abandon the doubletalk.