Robert Kennedy Jr. Drops Out of the Race for the White House

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with
former President Donald Trump

I didn't get to every article I was planning on today (I said 4-5 for a reason this morning, because I had five in mind), but I am going to fulfill my promise and get the fourth done with our fifth hopefully snuck in tomorrow.  Our last today will be, of course, on Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s bizarre (and messy) dropping out of the 2024 presidential election.

First, let's talk about what exactly happened here.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr's journey to his independent presidential run is bizarre given how long he's been in politics, and how for many years, he was considered to be a pretty standard-issue Democrat.  The son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, he was most known in the 1980's & 1990's for his work in environmental law, and was considered for roles in hypothetical Gore & Kerry administrations.  At one point he was rumored to be President Obama's first-term EPA Administrator, but the job went to Lisa Jackson.  This was the last time that Kennedy was in the news for something good, however, at least if you use the metric of "good for his career in Democratic politics."  Kennedy became one of the most prominent figures in the anti-vaccination movement, calling vaccines, which he claim cause autism (this has been repeatedly debunked), akin to "the holocaust."  He gained multiple headlines for his conspiracy theories around Covid-19, specifically those related to Anthony Fauci & Bill Gates, and has falsely claimed there is no connection between HIV and AIDS.  

Honestly, this sort of "family member jumps over the deep end of Facebook conspiracies" has become all too common in Trump's America, but Kennedy, because of his last name, had this play out on the front pages of newspapers and magazines rather than over the Thanksgiving table.  His siblings Kathleen & Joseph, as well as his nieces Maeve & Kerry (both daughters of Kathleen), the latter of whom is an MD, have put out statements condemning his views on vaccines, and have spent years distancing themselves from their brother/uncle.  But given the fame of his name, they were not successful, and RFK Jr. ran a presidential campaign in 2024, first running in the Democratic Primaries, and then (after it was clear he'd gained no traction), running as an independent, becoming the fifth member of the Kennedy family to seek the White House (his Uncle Jack was president in 1960, his dad ran in 1968 but died during the primaries, his uncle-through-marriage Sargent Shriver briefly ran for president in 1976, and his uncle Ted ran in 1980...all four of them as Democrats).

The campaign has been a fascinating case of Schrodinger's Candidacy from my vantage point.  Kennedy filled a void that was clearly needed in the race, and for a while, he was running an impressive set of numbers (for a third party candidate) against a Biden/Trump rematch.  In December he hit 22% in a Quinnipiac poll, which was a high-point, but he regularly came in in the 10-15% range with Biden in the race, which would've made him the best third party candidate since Ross Perot in 1992.  Part of this was coasting off of two things-his famous name and the fact that the country clearly had a contingency that didn't want either of these two men running.  Kennedy's views on a number of issues were well outside of the mainstream...him not being able to participate in debates (which he may well have qualified for under certain polls) was a blessing for him because any press that actually showed him to the American people was going to hurt his campaign.  But what actually hurt him was Kamala Harris entering the race.  Much of the wind in his sails was taken out as Democrats who "wanted someone other than Joe Biden" got what they wanted and lined up behind Harris almost instantly, which cut RFK's already dwindling support down to below 5%, a good chunk of which was going to Donald Trump.

Kennedy with his running-mate Nicole Shanahan

And this was when Kennedy showed his true colors.  This candidacy was not about his views, or about beating Trump and Biden...it was about beating Biden and getting into a Trump cabinet.  When it was obvious that he was hurting Trump, his running-mate Nicole Shanahan channeled to the press that they were considering dropping out because they were hurting Trump more than Biden, and that's what they did, both endorsing Trump on Friday.  Kennedy seemed to imply that he would still like votes in solid red/blue states but not to vote for him in swing states, but honestly...that's not what will happen.  By-and-large, his campaign from a practical standpoint is over.

The question I have been asked a few times since he dropped out is-what does this mean?  First off, I'm not entirely sure.  This happens during the sugar high of a very successful DNC, so getting a good read on polls in general in the next week will be a challenge.  I think Trump hoped that this would get after Harris in the same way that Biden dropping out hurt Trump's post-RNC bump...I don't think that'll work that way, mostly because there's very little from RFK's polling to be gained.  Even if he gained all of it, Trump would probably go back to polling even with Harris...and that's a steep hill to cross.  I think at least a chunk of the RFK votes won't go to either candidate, and at least some will go to Harris rather than Trump.  Trump will gain the majority, but not a huge majority, and that won't help much with his gap; Nate Silver (whom I normally don't reference but he did the math so I'm going to make an exception here) thinks that Trump's gain from this could be about 0.3 points in the polling averages, which is basically nothing.  

It's also worth noting that Kennedy has missed the deadline in a lot of states to get off of the ballot.  In Michigan, for example, a key swing state, the deadline has passed and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has confirmed he'll stay on the ballot.  Even with a dead campaign, people will vote for him.  And other states will follow-Kennedy missed the deadline to get off of the ballot in Washington, and has not given an indication he'll take his name off in Iowa, whose deadline is this upcoming Thursday.  I'll be real here-the main question I'm not getting from this is why is Kennedy not trying to get off the ballot everywhere-he's hurting Trump, at the very least, in his quest to take the popular vote, and he's not launching a third party movement (this isn't like Ralph Nader wanting to keep party access for the Green Party, for example), so what's he getting out of this?  I genuinely have no clue.  Does he still want to be in third place for the 2024 election, just for bragging rights (truly, that's my best guess), because I am curious depending on how many ballots he's on if Chase Oliver (the Libertarian) will get more votes than Kennedy at this rate.  And if he does, we're looking at a situation like 2004/2012/2020, where third party candidates are basically a non-entity in the race, and will struggle to collectively get to more than about 2% of the vote (which was definitely not going to be the case with Kennedy as an active candidate).

The end result here when you look beyond the ballot box, though, is that Trump has gotten a second dose of weird to his candidacy.  He has made a potentially smart move (if RFK Jr. was taking more votes from him than Harris, this helps him no matter the cynicism about the move), though he almost certainly promised Kennedy a cabinet position (Trump hinted publicly that this would be the HHS Secretary job), which given Kennedy's views on vaccination is hardly something that Trump wants to be too public & linked to his campaign in the coming months (i.e. Kennedy makes for a very risky surrogate, and the RNC is over-he can't even highlight him there).  As for Kennedy, he has fully committed to the Trump machine, and likely made his relationship with his siblings eternally toxic.  Five of his siblings (Kathleen, Courtney, Kerry, Chris, & Rory) have publicly stated that his endorsement is a "betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear."  His cousin Jack Schlossberg, who got a prime speaking slot at the DNC and seems to be the family's most prominent future-facing figure, said "RFK Jr. is for sale, works for Trump.  Bedfellows and loving it" on Twitter.  

A lot of our relatives are going to be in for a wake-up call when they realize Facebook isn't real (and if, as polls are increasingly indicating, Kamala Harris becomes the next President of the United States).  For the Kennedy Family, though, they're going to have to deal with that after their brother-and-uncle became a national pariah and punchline.