The real impact on the election if RFK Jr. drops out and endorses Donald Trump
I’ve said from the very start that I expected Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s impact on this election to be zero. He’s so far out in la la land, even for a third party candidate, anyone who’s voting for him was never going to vote for a major party candidate anyway.
Furthermore, I’ve always considered three way polling to be a red herring. When pollsters make a point of listing a specific third party candidate like RFK Jr, it gives an artificial boost to that candidate. When people don’t intend to vote because they don’t like either candidate, and they’re given a list that includes a third fringe candidate, they may be inclined to pick the third name just to avoid having to admit that they’re not going to vote.
Still, when RFK Jr first entered the race, we were told to panic over his candidacy, by the people who always tell us to panic over everything. Of course polling ended up showing that RFK Jr’s candidacy was actually helping Kamala Harris by a point or two, and so the panic died down.
But now RFK Jr says he’s addressing the nation on Friday, and there are media reports that he might be dropping out and endorsing Donald Trump. Now we’re being told to panic because this could erase the “advantage” that his presence in the race was supposedly giving Kamala.
But I still fully expect the impact to be zero. Why? For one thing, like I said, I always believed that the three way polling numbers were nonsense. So I’ve always been looking at two way polling, not three way polling. And again, if someone is voting for (or talking about voting for) a rubber room mentally incompetent conspiracy theorist like RFK Jr, it’s either because they’re also mentally incompetent, or because they want to stick it to both parties. That kind of person doesn’t shift their vote to a major party candidate.
I don’t think there’s anything RFK Jr. could say or do that would have any impact on this election at all. I’ve felt that way from the start, and I think more of you are coming to see it that way. And if he had no impact by being in the race, he’s not going to have any impact by dropping out of the race. From start to finish, his candidacy has been a red herring.
