I’m neither an expert nor an american, but the idea that RFK Jr running as a third party candidate will hurt the democrats seems strange to me.
His policies, which can be summed up as “deny reality”, align very closely with the modern republican party, not the democrats. It’s hard to imagine that he would pull more votes away from Biden than Trump. Are there some people who would vote based on name recognition? Maybe… but surely it can’t be that many? Meanwhile “Trump but not a rapist” must appeal to a number of the evangelical republicans…
There unfortunately are people who would vote solely on his name. “Oh he’s a Kennedy they’re very liberal.”
I’m 57 and I hardly know who the Kennedys are. I don’t think the millennials in the Gen Z’s care about his name, just his policies
As an American, I can only say… it’s complicated.
First and foremost, no Republican would willingly vote for a Kennedy. The Kennedy family is right up the with the Clinton and Obama families as targets for conservative hatred.
Secondly, there’s a small but growing contingent of “crunchy” liberals who are rabidly anti-vax and increasingly jumping on the conspiracy train. They’re still in favor of lots of liberal things like reproductive and LGBTQIA+ rights, but they’re increasingly anti-establishment and pro-conspiracy.
Any third party candidates will pull voters away from both parties, but I suspect dipshit RFKjr will pull about 80/20% democrat vs republican.
Our electoral system is really rigged in favor of Republicans. He only needs to sway a few thousand in key states. I don’t think he will because one only needs to show any of his campaign material to a potential dem voter and they’ll drop him quick I think. People who would be drawn to him on his massage rather than his name are likely to vote Republican, not Democrat.
So I don’t think he’s make a difference. But the reason people are concerned is because he doesn’t need to say that many people. Remember that Trump had over 2% fewer votes than Clinton but won by a few thousand votes in key states.
