If it seems like we spend a lot of time on RFK Jr, it’s because we do. In our defense, it’s not every day a scion of American’s most famous and star-crossed political family runs for president, is vehemently opposed by own his siblings, energetically backed by Silicon Valley, all while polling at 22% in a general election. For context, only one 3rd-party candidate since 1848 has received more than 22% of the popular vote, Teddy Roosevelt’s 27% in 1912.
To be honest, another reason RFK Jr has been a favorite topic is we have been rather accurate in our predictions of what would become of his campaign. In June, when Twitter royalty posted he had the "clearest path to the presidency," a post liked by 3m people, we wrote he didn’t have a future as a Democrat given his 15% approval in the party, and he had little shot at the presidency since his policies were very unpopular, and thus over time, he’d lose support as more people learned about him.
Three months later, Kennedy switched to running as an independent. Six months on, he is down to 13% in an average of five polls, 10% in Real Clear Politics’ average, and 11% in our March poll. If you are thinking “So, Nostradamus, tell us what’s next” it is undoubtedly with sarcasm, but we will answer all the same.
Last week, readers may have seen that for the first time the mainstream media postulated RFK Jr may take more votes from Trump than Biden in the general election. People availing themselves of our poll data would have considered this idea as early as a year ago: In May of 2023 our same poll that showed his 15% approval among Democrats showed 45% approval among GOP, a first sign he could well siphon off more Trump than Biden votes. Our poll of six weeks ago made it more clear, showing 21% of GOP respondents were voting for Kennedy, 18% of independents, and only 3% of Democrats.
Now that that others seems to have caught on that an anti-vax populist will likely take more votes from Trump than Biden, we will go out on a limb and predict Trump, who as late as mid-April had sought to give Kennedy a boost, will turn on RFK Jr in recognition of the threat. We also predict the Silicon Valley types that were boosting Kennedy with PR and money, will slow that roll, not wishing to keep Biden in office.
One final possibility – Democrats may start contributing to Kennedy. Taking votes from Trump is, all else equal, easier than getting more votes for Biden given the historic unpopularity the two presidents. Democrats say they believe in polling, polling is telling them to keep RFK Jr in the race. That said, we don’t predict Democrats will support someone who says the US should not send aid to Ukraine, AIDS is not caused by HIV, and that psychiatric drugs cause mass shootings, no matter how much it might help them.
