On June 8, Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams tweeted “RFK Jr. has the strongest path to the presidency.” Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey replied "100%"
Adams has 1 million Twitter followers, and his 2015 prediction that Donald Trump would become president made him a political soothsayer to some. Dorsey has 6.5 million followers and $4bb, so many likewise consider him to know of what he speaks. But the data says Robert F Kennedy Jr’s path is far from strong, let alone the strongest.
Kennedy is running for the Democratic nomination, and while it’s true Democratic front-runner Joe Biden is relatively unpopular for a candidate within his own party, Biden's approval among Democrats dwarf’s Kennedy’s, as does the intra-party approval of any viable primary candidate in either party. (data source: Fat Finger)
A hope for RFK Jr, at least among the ‘strongest path’ crowd, is that public opinion on him is yet be hardened, and that as people come to learn his policies his approval will improve. But RFK Jr is already closely associated with is policies, even compared to politicians who have been on the national scene for years, such as former Ambassador to the UN under President Trump, and 2024 GOP presidential candidate, Nikki Haley Only 11% identify her from her policies, while 49% identify Kennedy from his.
What's more, the policies RFK Jr is associated with are not popular. The average approval for eight select Kennedy policies is 36%. That is extremely low for a presidential candidate. By compariosn, Haley's policy average 59% approval. (data source Fat Finger)
If Kennedy were to make it to the general election, either by by beating the steep odds as a Democrat (or by switching to a third-party candidate), he would have the benefit of facing one (or two) of the least popular general election candidates of all time, Biden and Donald Trump.
But even then, Kennedy would be an underdog, and were he to win, would do so with the worst net approval of any winner in the 100 years such polling records have been kept.
