Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Taking Votes Away From Trump After Switching to Independent
Trump lost 10 points in the latest Marist poll.
Well, I will eat my crow. I thought Robert F. Kennedy Jr. becoming an Independent would only harm President Joe Biden.
Nope. He’s taking votes away from President Donald Trump.
A new poll with RFK Jr. as an Independent shows Biden lost five points. Trump lost 10 points.
“Although it’s always tricky to assess the impact of a third-party candidate, right now Kennedy alters the equation in Biden’s favor,” says Lee M. Miringoff, Director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. “What this does speak to, however, is that about one in six voters are looking for another option especially independents.”
The poll is through October 17.
Biden leads Trump, 44% to 37%.
Between Biden and Trump, 49% of the Independents preferred Trump.
Add Kennedy to the mix, who is the Independent, and the Independents still favor Trump at 34%.
The Independents also chose Biden above Kennedy, 33% to 29%.
RFK Jr. is still a Democrat. The right seems to have embraced him because of his stance on COVID vaccines and Big Tech.
Here is the Marist poll through October 4. It had Biden leading Trump, but not by much.
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Trump supporters will need to work hard to let the electorate know of RFK Jrs history on the 2nd Amendment and other important conservative priorities.
All anyone has to do is go to his website and read his policies. He’s liberal through and through.
Actually, he is a leftist through and through.
He supports reparations…
Most voters aren’t that diligent about researching who they might vote for.
That’s why he needs to be asked the right questions in public while people are watching.
His craziness from 20 years ago is still fresh in my mind. His recent advocacy for reparations is just adding to that.
Man has no business minding a fruit stand, let alone the highest office in the land.
and he also favors reparations
He can afford it.
Your first mistake is assuming that you’re losing conservatives
Squish-votes for Trump are worth every bit as much as MAGA-votes for Trump.
RFK jr just came out in favor of racial reparations! If that and gun grabbing don’t do it, nothing will!
Not so hard, he is quite open on where he stands. His Rogan podcast was pretty clear it’s just that most people don’t really know about his other views due to a decades long MSM blackout. When people find out they won’t vote for him.
To be clear, I like him as he does not back down from what he believes and answers questions clearly. I won’t vote for him but there are many on the left that will.
“Trump supporters will need to work hard to let the electorate know of RFK Jrs history on the 2nd Amendment”
“Take the guns first, go through due process second.” -Teh Donuld, 2/28/2018
(And Dianne Feinstein, sitting to his left, visibly moistened.)
RFK is finished with Republican or independent voters….once he said he was open to reparations for the black community….that finished off his campaign as an ‘option’. So Trump is back to full power again.
I would revise the numbers and say RFK wins no states in the Electoral College and mostly takes Joe Biden votes.
And RFK’s reasons for reparations are even very lame, that Jim Crow, which has been over since ’65, is the reason for Black failures in business and the reason that we don’t have something close to social-economic racial equity now. There are lots of reasons for Black failures starting with massive academic failures & illegitimacy. I’m actually surprised he was dumb enough to take this position.
The Marist Poll (Marist is an A rated polling organization says 538) says otherwise. :RFK is taking more votes from Big Don than from Slowyl. Read the linked poll in the article.
Source: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.Com/pollster-ratings/
OK, let’s suppose that with Jr in the mix that none get the 270 needed, then it goes to the House with each state’s delegation getting one vote ,….voi la, President Trump
What state is RFK winning? 48 states are winner take all, and so only a plurality is needed in any of those states, not a majority. So which states does RFK win in?
Who knows? The campaign hasn’t been held yet, and the vote is a year away. And with each new 3rd party entrant, the threshold for a plurality gets lower – at least in principle. I would foresee a possibility of the Democratic Party splitting over Israel, especially if Kamala becomes President and goes all-in for the Palestinians, and 3rd party candidates could exploit that to win in surprising places.
And as we all know, opinion polling is highly scientific and accurate!
There’s no chance RFK Jr wins any electoral votes. The concern is that he draws votes from Trump, enabling Biden to win that states electoral votes.
RFK Jr is nothing more than a construct, a manufactured excuse for VoteCheat 2.0 next fall.
Disagree. The presence of a 3rd party candidate on the ballot, who has a decent level of support, complicates efforts to stuff the ballot box. It becomes more complicated to figure out the exact over/under equilibrium point on number ballots to generate from the pool of registered voters. Infrequent voters may actually cast a ballot for RFK making that vote unavailable for shenanigans. Alternatively if they go to vote and find out someone else already voted in their name that helps build a case for fraud.
Actually the uniparty has been working to master vote cheating since the sixties, with it failing twice, 2000 and 2016. I doubt 2024 is going to change that. With NGO funneling money to the millions of illegal immigrants foot soldiers to stuff the boxes it is hard to stop. What is BLM doing with its $96 BILLION?
Yea, keep believing it is fair and honest.
I didn’t imply much less state outright that I believed election shenanigans don’t occur. When y’all go projecting garbage it undercuts your effectiveness as an advocate for your position.
This is very simple. When there is a two person contest it is easier to stuff the ballot box than with a three person contest. There’s less variables to manage. A 3rd party candidate with legit support means that some of the registered voters who don’t always vote come off the sidelines to vote for that 3rd party candidate. In turn that means their ballot isn’t as easily used for shenanigans. It also means some regular voters when offered a 3rd Party option will exercise it. That means the usual % of the total between the two major party candidates is now less predictable.
Both of those things make it more difficult to use ballot stuffing shenanigans b/c they gotta keep it somewhat believable and not exceed the number of registered voters. In addition it adds more potential voters discovering that someone already voted in their name which creates more potential victims who will report it and raise hell about it in public.
Left: There is no evidence of fraud.
Right: Here is evidence of fraud.
Left: See. I told you there was no evidence of fraud.
Right: Here is more evidence of fraud.
Left: Yep, still no evidence of fraud.
Though if they eff up and exceed the # of registered voters or eff up by using the ballots of voters who show up, find out someone already ‘voted’ in their name and large # of voters make a big stink in public then the usually unacknowledged election shenanigans MAY get some additional coverage which in turn MIGHT get more folks to pay attention….or not.
You seem to have overlooked Arizona. If the courts won’t play, it doesn’t matter how much fraud there is.
They won’t exceed the number of “registered voters”. The ballot harvesting/drop box stuffing operations get their ballots mostly from undeliverable mail-in ballots that are returned to the Post Office, from their friendly Postal Union Rep of course.
txvet2,
I deliberately ignored the role of the Court for the reasons you imply. IMO, any changes will come from adoption of tighter election security and ballot integrity legislation that leaves no ambiguity and an accompanying mandate to enforce those with a provision for a low threshold of provable deviations triggering a ‘do over’. As an example if a particular precinct didn’t follow signature match requirements then that precinct gets their votes rejected. The officials who failed get fired/replaced and they might be able to squeeze in a ‘do over’ prior to certification deadline IF the folks opposing that don’t use up the available time fighting it in CT. Gotta shift the incentive away from officials running out the clock while making rejection of tainted precincts ballots routine.
Mew_Cat,
Maybe. Depends upon the willingness of average Citizens to support efforts to purge unlawful registrations. Returned ballots go to either voters who moved and should have been purged or died and should have been purged. Voter registration list maintenance isn’t optional despite all the whining from d/prog officials.
One simple way to look for bad registrations is to get the voter registration list and compare it to the property tax rolls. Voters are required to use the physical address of their residence. No Commercial address, much less vacant lots. When an unusually high number of multiple voters list the exact same address that can indication of noncompliance, could be innocent could be deliberate but either way it’s almost certainly not in strict compliance and must be purged.
I can see that point, the equilibrum of scandal versus security.
I think the problem lies in rational people viewing irrational choice through the wrong frame of reference. RFK is manufactured chaos, like 1968 foretold.
There WILL be election shenanigans in ’24, just as in every election. A 3rd party candidate with legit levels of support makes the planning and execution of those shenanigans more complicated.
That is correct.
In a head to head with Biden, Trump will get a record number of votes and nobody — I mean nobody — would buy it if Biden miraculously tops that. Therefore the steal is practically impossible as Democrats would not take a chance with the logistics of pulling that off.
Now, throw RFK in the mix and a lot of votes shift away from Trump thereby making it easier to harvest a smaller number of ballots in surgically placed precincts of swing states.
If that ain’t bad enough, Biden will most likely not be nominee in 2024 in favor of Newsom and Democrats who are not to thrilled with Biden will be newly motivated to be able to vote for a non-senile alternative.
You have not paid attention
He is the same now as 20yrs ago. Nothing manufactured or fake
Nope. RFK, jr has come out in favor of reparations.
Paying people who were never in slavery with money from people who never held slaves and many who were Irish slaves and who had no family in this country at the time of the Civil War, which paid for slavery with the blood of Americans who fought to stop it.
https://nypost.com/2023/10/18/rfk-jr-comes-out-for-reparations-forging-lane-to-bidens-left/?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=nypost&utm_medium=social
I’am willing to bet that he will get secret service protection now.
This tells you something about the depth of support for Trump. It ain’t deep. He lost to Joe Biden. Down-ballot candidates did better than Trump backed candidates in 2022. How’s the value of your Trump NFTs? Abandon ship.
The system is rigged. Why keep pretending the system tells u anything except that it is rigged.
I like SOME of Bobby Jrs, stances, but reparations? And gun grabbing? I consider him as a not-quite-as-crazy-as-other-Dems candidate. Still wouldn’t get my vote for prez. However there are plenty of Blue voters who might vote for the Mean-Tweet-Candidate as opposed to the Dementia-Candidate given no other option. So I can see where some reluctant Trump votes might be “wasted” on a 3rd party candidate given the option.
As to Trump support being “shallow”, nope.
He’s got a large number of bedrock vote support that’s not going to go away easily. Granted polling shows it’s not >50%, but the more Biden people see the less they like it – so it’s a battle of who do you dislike the least to get above the 50% mark. Also, that’s the popular vote, not the electoral college. With the EC serving as a breakwater for voting shenanigans, it doesn’t matter how many dead and imaginary voters vote for Biden in (say) Illinois, they don’t get extra credit for it.
Trump has a lot of rock-solid support, but not enough to win. He needs the votes of people who see him as the lesser of 2 evils to get over the top in swing states, and many of those people will be tempted to voter 3rd party.
You’re not totally wrong, but what that meme ignores is that Slippery Joe also polls at less than 50%. There are voters who would vote for Biden over Trump even if Biden suffered from a paralyzing stroke – but there are also voters who have problems with Biden’s inability to not lie, to refrain from perving on young girls, to refrain from selling his office for fun and profits, and to actually do a credible job as president.
His recent proposal to gift Hamas with another 100 million as a reward for poking the Israeli bear – and send a stern note if they spend it on military stuff isn’t a vote getter imho.
Biden is the lost unpopular president in history. But Trump is so unpopular that he needs every independent out there. He doesn’t have them.
What else might have influenced the results? It may not be solely due to the presence of RFK.
You mean like, Trump continuing to run his mouth?
/dons downtick helmet
I’m the downtick leader today. Don’t try to steal my thunder.
Awwww…! An elderly bear can’t have some fun.
I gave you one to keep your crown
I upticked you!
About two weeks behind the curve citing outlier polls on a point that has been long debunked.
Good job.
And the reparations announcement is just the rotten cherry on the crap flavored sundae.
I don’t know how much stock to put in national polls. The results reflect what would happen if the President were elected via the “popular vote”. But we don’t elect presidents that way. I would want to see state-by-state data.
“I don’t know how much stock to put in national polls.”
How about “none?” It’s way too early to try to draw any conclusions from an outlier poll more than a year away from the election, when even the primaries haven’t yet begun.
IMO, national polls are useful for tracking a trend line over time and that’s about all. This far out even State level polls are still not close to precisely predicting the actual vote %. Though with such a huge lead Trump is absolutely in the drivers seat. Outside a collapse or catastrophic event he’s gonna be the nominee.
People on the right thought they could use RFK Jr. as stalking horse and now it’s blown up in OUR faces.
Gosh, who ever thought that such a thing could happen? I did, and said so on this forum.
Trumpets will tell you that this never could happen. Must be rigged. There’s already one in this comment section.
You’re a little premature.
Nothing has “blown up” in anybody’s face – haven’t even had any primaries yet.
Don’t be so quick to crow about your prognostications. It’s way too early.
People on the right thought they could use RFK Jr. as stalking horse.
That’s why he doing this.
now he will get all kinds of Bush/Never Trump money
he will be the listless vessel in which the NT votes are deposited
cuz stopping Trump is job #1 for these creatures
screw the country
I’m guessing this will end all the silly talk of RFK jr being Trump’s VP
It is not the right. It is people who don’t want to vote for Trump but won’t vote for Biden. They are still making it a Joe Biden win.
It’s an anti-Warp Speed vote for RFK Jr.
…as long as the Scotch will flow and 10% is earmarked for Joe we shall be shown what is already known, that Zeno was true with his view that motion is illusion. Splitting hairs, be it policy or heirs, results in motion that is infinite yet the period of infinite motion decreases with each motion until undefined equilibrium is attained.
The plan all along
Very true. Don Surber predicted this months ago as have others
This is true. Don Surber wrote an article said the goal of his run was to draw votes away from trump – he and others predicted this months ago – as have others
(Sorry for the dup below)
BINGO.
If… (how to put this..,) Here we go. If something should happen to RFKJr, the very first to be blamed will be Trump, and some crooked DA will bring charges.
Very true. Don Surber predicted this months ago as have others
Not sure only one poll is the most accurate indicator of the truth on this subject.
One thing is for certain; the Left’s public and media response to RFKjr will tell us who they are afraid of, and I’ve been seeing more and more articles written by Lefties that are critical of him and his candidacy.
If he clearly was hurting Trump more, the Left would be pushing him to run. Pushing hard.
And they aren’t.
RFK is not in it to win. He is an intelligence operation Plan B to prevent Trump from winning. Plan A is in the courts and Plan C is someone named Lee Harvey.
Best analysis (next to mine) I’ve read, so far.
RFK’s new campaign manager is an ex-spook and a family member, for whatever that is worth.
Ross Perot 2.0
Ross Perot would have sent the election to the House if he hadn’t done crazy stuff like dropping out and in again. Ross just wanted Bush to lose.
Exactly. RFK Jr may or may not have the same goal, but he may very well have the same effect.
Weird framing. As if anyone could control what Kennedy would do. As if he would take no votes from Haley or DeSantis? Has that been considered? Interesting to see the glee of some because it would hurt you know who. Of course, their you know who would be unscathed.
If he runs as an independent, he shouldn’t affect the primaries at all. The reason nobody’s talking about anybody but Trump is simple – he’s the runaway front runner and presumed nominee.
the silver lining in this is RFK jr will now take Never Trump donations away from the meatball,
however, everyone should take a deep breath and think about a poll in which Biden gets 49% against Trump
that in itself diminishes the value of this poll
Biden won an outright majority against Trump in 2020. Against Hillary Clinton Trump achieved 46% of the vote.
Your being an ostrich.
So…Legal Insurrection is basically admitting DeSantis doesn’t have a chance then?
Wait–I thought you geniuses said that all the indictments were designed to get the gullible asses to nominate Trump again because Trump couldn’t win and they WANTED to run against him.
Now you’re saying that they WANT RFK in so that he will take votes from Trump so Biden can beat him
You guys are like AGW proponents–everything that happens is proof you are right even if it directly exposes how wrong you are.
Not that I believe either of those things but those two things are not mutually exclusive. Think of it like risk mitigation. You have vehicle insurance + park your vehicle in your enclosed garage + homeowners insurance on the garage + you don’t allow your irresponsible teenage Son to drive that vehicle + you use a rental vehicle instead on road trips. Each things adds to the odds of keeping the vehicle safe.
Your dishonesty is exhausting.
Here is the first thing she said
“Well, I will eat my crow. I thought Robert F. Kennedy Jr. becoming an Independent would only harm President Joe Biden.”
Danny, please learn to read before you try to speak to people about issues that require reading.
Now toddle off and tell your caregiver that you need changing.
Personally I want to see who the Constitution Party nominates, lol
Smart move by RFK Jr. When he was running as a Dem he was an existential threat to Brandon’s re-election – not a healthy situation. Now that he takes votes from Trump FJB will probably authorize Secret Service protection for him.
His web site has him in favor of reparations
He’s making headlines now for supporting reparations.
He’s also an abortion fanatic.
Need to publicize his D creds, right now he’s mostly known for being sane on mRNA injections.