Why Kennedy dropping out would serve as a boon for Trump

After nearly a month of bad news, the Trump campaign could get an injection of energy in the form of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropping out.

Kennedy is widely expected to end his long-shot bid for the White House on Friday after months of fighting to get ballot access in enough states to make himself competitive in November. His withdrawal could also come with an endorsement for former President Donald Trump.

Analysts debated Kennedy’s effect on the race until President Joe Biden dropped out in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris. The consensus has been that he has taken away votes largely from Trump. His running mate, Nicole Shanahan, began openly flirting with the idea of “joining forces” with Trump against Harris this week, leading to an announcement that Kennedy would address the nation about his campaign’s future in Phoenix on Friday.

If Kennedy drops out and endorses Trump, it could once again shift the dynamics of the 2024 presidential race.

Biden-skeptics parking votes

According to the Wall Street Journal, Democrats who backed Kennedy earlier in the year largely did so as a way of “parking” their vote, because they were uneasy with Biden. The Democratic Party’s switch to Harris assuaged those fears, and voters flocking to her made up much of the honeymoon surge she experienced.

“The RFK curiosity on the left is gone,’’ focus-group specialist and anti-Trump Republican Sarah Longwell told the outlet. The remaining Kennedy voters are “Trumpy people, and so he will pick up those voters’’ if he drops out and endorses Trump.

Anti-vaccine sentiment

Kennedy burst onto the 2024 contest scene as a prominent skeptic of vaccines generally — and COVID-19 shots in particular.

Republicans concerned about the rush to manufacture and require vaccines to protect against the worst effects of COVID-19 brought what was once a fringe element on the Left into the mainstream on the Right. Operation Warp Speed, Trump’s successful initiative to cut red tape and facilitate the rapid production of COVID-19 vaccines, wasn’t enough to convince some of the former president’s strongest supporters that the shots were safe for consumers.

Even after the worst of the pandemic had passed, Kennedy continued to rail against vaccines of different stripes, offering a home for voters incensed about the restrictions that were imposed on people who declined to be inoculated.

Vaccine skeptics are a small but fierce community. A Pew Research poll last year found that most adults favor vaccinating children for mumps, measles, and rubella, a common series of immunizations that prevent deadly disease. However, there was a small uptick in people voicing concerns about the safety of the shots.

“The polarized response to the handling of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, including the role of COVID-19 vaccines, has been a source of deep concern for medical and public health communities,” Pew found. “It has also raised questions about whether vaccine hesitancy connected with COVID-19 vaccines would spill into Americans’ views of other vaccines.”

Trump and most Republicans have dropped their grievances with vaccine mandates, but RFK Jr. voters might feel more welcomed by the GOP than by Democrats.

Inside-Outside group

Despite his famous last name, Kennedy also provided disaffected Democrats, and some Republicans, an outlet to vent their frustration with the people who have been and remain in power.

Biden wasn’t running as an outsider in 2024, and Trump was running a pseudo-reelection campaign.

With Kennedy, voters could cast a vote for change that meant a brand new face in the White House. Winning a campaign also would have been a career first, as Kennedy had toyed with politics for years but never tried to put himself in contention for public office before trying to win the presidency.

Voters who want to see someone new in the Oval Office might not be completely satisfied with casting a ballot to send Trump back, though he does represent more of an outsider perspective than Harris.

Voter crossover

Kennedy was known for his eclectic platform that appealed to voters on the Left and Right. His environmentalist positions, support for abortion access, and support for reparations, as well as his status as the son of one of the United States’s biggest liberal icons, made him appealing to left-wing voters. 

His skepticism over support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, vaccine skepticism, criticism of the U.S.’s COVID-19 response, and sympathetic position toward Trump have endeared him to many on the Right. Kennedy’s support for some conspiracy theories has also won him favor among many of the more conspiratorial-minded on the Right.

What the polls say

Wall Street Journal polling found that among voters backing third-party or independent candidates, half would switch their vote to Trump while one-quarter would back Harris — this proportion would likely shift further in Trump’s favor if Kennedy threw his weight behind the former president with an explicit endorsement.

The Wall Street Journal found that without Kennedy, the race would shift back into Trump’s favor – Harris held a 1% lead with Kennedy in the race, while Trump held a 2% lead without him. The same group of voters backing third-party or independent candidates also have a far more positive view of Trump. Those who disapprove of Trump’s job as president outweighed those who approved by 7%, while disapproval with Harris outweighed the positive by 47%.

Trump and Kennedy have had an on-off relationship throughout the 2024 campaign, with some speculation that Trump could approach Kennedy to be his running mate early on stifled by public attacks pinning him as a far-left radical. Kennedy called Trump shortly after the assassination attempt against him last month to express his sympathy, footage of which was leaked online.