Donald Trump and Joe Biden are likely to compete against each other in the US election. But there is another possible spoilsport: Robert F. Kennedy Junior. He hardly has a chance, but he makes both of them nervous.
Four minutes and 15 seconds is a long time. No commercial or pop song is that long. But Donald Trump takes four minutes and 15 seconds to warn his Republican friends about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “RFK Junior is a creation of the Democrats,” Trump said in a video message, “a radical left-wing liberal installed to get the villain Joe Biden re-elected, the worst president ever.”
Donald Trump, it seems, is taking this political opponent really seriously. Joe Biden’s supporters are also toughening the tone: More than a dozen members of the Kennedy family have pledged their support to Biden, but not to their relative Robert F. Kennedy.
A product of dissatisfied voters
“It’s the parking lot for anyone who doesn’t like their choices,” says Kyle Kondik, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. Kennedy’s success is primarily an expression of voters’ dissatisfaction with the other two candidates. It is far from clear who he will end up being dangerous to, Trump or Biden. As the most prominent of the non-party candidates, he deserves the attention of both because he could harm them both, says Kondik.
Robert F. Kennedy Junior, 70 years old, nephew of President John F. Kennedy Jr., who was assassinated in 1963, has made a name for himself as a combative lawyer for environmental and consumer issues. During the pandemic, he stood out as an opponent of vaccination and claimed that the lockdown was intended to wipe out the middle class. Last April he began his campaign as a presidential candidate – initially with the Democrats, now as a non-party.
Youthful alternative at 70?
“We have the people on our side, we will take our country back,” Kennedy said last week in Texas. His messages are populist and more right-wing than left-wing. The government is lying to the people and neglecting important issues such as chronic diseases, he says. The war machine must be switched off and the money invested at home.
At 70, he presents himself as the youthful alternative to Biden and Trump. A video shows him doing push-ups with a naked torso; millions of people have watched it. In current polls it is around ten percent – the best result that an independent candidate has achieved in a long time. That’s not enough to become president, but it’s enough to influence the outcome.
“The more seriously it is taken, the more it can influence the outcome,” said Hans Noel, a politics professor at Georgetown University in Washington. For example, if he manages to get on the ballot in battleground states like Michigan, Arizona or Wisconsin. There, the votes for him could swing the result in one direction or the other.
Few positive headlines recently
“What’s important for him is whether he makes it to the first presidential debate with Biden and Trump at the end of June,” says Noel. That could give his campaign momentum. But so far Kennedy has not qualified, in part because he remains below 15 percent in national opinion polls.
In addition, his recent headlines have been rather unflattering. Doctors found a dead worm in his brain, Kennedy confirmed. In the future, that will be the first thing people associate with Kennedy, says political researcher Noel, along the lines of: “There’s this guy who’s running. What about him? That’s the guy with the worm in his brain.”
What role Kennedy will ultimately play cannot be estimated at the moment.
Katrin Brand, ARD Washington, tagesschau, May 17, 2024 6:40 a.m