The story from Ross Perot to Trump to RFK Jr is that there's a solid 12% of voters, primarily right-leaning, who simply want a lunatic with strong name recognition. https://t.co/9XNQoC7zma
— zeddy (@Zeddary) October 18, 2023
Latest development!
Initial polling shows that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to run as an independent in 2024 could help Biden more than Trump. All that positive media attention for Kennedy’s anti-vaxx views and conspiracy mongering is having an effect. https://t.co/9Kc6YM6Sti
— New York Magazine (@NYMag) October 23, 2023
Ed Kilgore, Democratic professional observer, at NYMag:
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped out of the Democratic presidential primary and announced an independent bid, plenty of Democrats understandably worried that the former environmentalist and current conspiracy hound would represent another threat to Joe Biden’s reelection. Kennedy inherited, after all, the most famous name in Democratic politics. He’s been considered a progressive — albeit a wacky one — for many years. His campaign manager during his abandoned primary campaign was the perennial champion of lefty lefties, Dennis Kucinich. And polls regularly showed him with a significant following as a Biden challenger in those primaries…
But one of the first public-opinion surveys to both measure and analyze a potential RFK Jr. vote in a three-way race shows a very different outcome, as USA Today reports:
It’s a tie: One year before the presidential election, Joe Biden and Donald Trump each command 37% of the vote in a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll — with independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. costing Trump what would have been a narrow lead.
Kennedy, scion of the nation’s most revered Democratic family, won 13% of the vote in a hypothetical match-up, drawing voters who by 2-1 said they would otherwise support the probable Republican nominee.
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