In October, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abandoned his primary challenge to Joe Biden and instead launched an independent candidacy, the initial conventional wisdom was that he might hurt Donald Trump more than Biden. For one thing, so long as he was threatening Biden’s Democratic nomination, Kennedy was treated to a lot of favorable conservative media attention. More generally, the thinking was that RFK Jr. was best known recently for the kind of hostility to vaccine mandates most prevalent among Republicans, along with a conspiracy-theory orientation most congenial to deeply alienated voters unlikely to support the incumbent.
Polling at the time validated this hunch. Right after Kennedy went indie, an NPR-PBS-Marist survey showed Biden leading Trump by three points (49 to 46 percent) in a head-to-head contest, but by 7 percent (44 to 37 percent, with RFK Jr. at 16 percent) in a three-way race. Similarly Quinnipiac had Biden leading Trump by one point head-to-head (47 to 46 percent) but by three points (39 to 36 percent, with 22 percent for RFK Jr.) with Kennedy in the mix.
Kennedy was obviously drawing some votes from both major-party candidates, and he still is. But more recent polling has most often shown him helping Trump more than Biden, both nationally and in the battleground states. The RealClearPolitics polling averages nationally now show Trump leading Biden by 1.6 percent (46.6 to 45.0 percent) in a two-candidate race, and by 5.4 percent (40.7 to 35.3 percent, with Kennedy at 12.3 percent) in a three-candidate race. There isn’t much battleground state polling of a three-candidate race, but we do have ample numbers for a five-candidate race, with Kennedy’s support dwarfing that of Jill Stein and Cornel West combined. These polls tell a similar tale of Kennedy boosting Trump marginally. In the RCP averages, Trump’s lead grows from 5.2 to 6.0 percent in Arizona, 5.2 to 7.4 percent in Georgia, 3.0 to 6.0 percent in Nevada, 4.4 to 6.7 percent in North Carolina, 0.2 to 2.0 percent in Pennsylvania, and 0.8 to 2.7 percent in Wisconsin (Michigan is an outlier with Trump’s lead dropping slightly — from 3.5 to 2.8 percent — when the other candidates are added in).
There are three big factors that may well affect the size and shape of Kennedy’s vote in the future. First, his veep reveal on March 26, in which he chose California tech entrepreneur and former Democratic donor Nicole Shanahan as his running-mate, could modestly enhance the progressive image of his ticket . Second, and more importantly, he will almost certainly be the object of unfriendly attention from the camp of the major-party candidate (at the moment, Joe Biden) he seems to be hurting. This could come in the form of attacks on his credibility, his ideology (perhaps to make him more attractive to voters from the other major party), or his effect on the outcome (i.e., for Democrats, the benefit Trump might receive). Third and perhaps most important will be the extent to which RFK Jr. gains ballot access, a laborious and expensive process, as Politico observed last week:
His campaign is officially on the ballot in one state so far — Utah. But it says it has collected enough signatures to also qualify in Nevada, Hawaii and New Hampshire. American Values 2024, a pro-Kennedy super PAC, says it has collected enough signatures to get him on the ballot in Michigan, South Carolina, Arizona and Georgia.
Shanahan’s wealth could help her ticket-mate in that arena. It’s also at least remotely possible Kennedy could pursue and secure the presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party, which would give him near-universal ballot access while limiting and perhaps skewing his vote.
Historically, non-major-party candidates almost always lose support as the general election grows nearer and voters choose not to “waste their votes.” That’s likely to happen to Kennedy as well. But if they do “return” to major-party candidates or move to another minor-party candidate or simply decide not to vote, there’s no guarantee the net effect on Biden and Trump will be neutral. So where he’s on the ballot and how he’s polling will be of enormous continuing interest even though he’s not going to follow his Uncle Jack into the presidency.
