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...
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.
I think the idea that it will hurt Democrats is coming desperate Republicans that haven’t caught up with the fact that the Trump Era expanded the base of people that will vote straight D as hard as the ‘conservative base’ votes straight R.
In effect they’re thinking I’m still the person I was in my 20’s- someone who would ‘vote their conscience’ with a third party out of disgust for both parties. Not that I’d have ever voted for RFK Jr’s crazy ass, but third party in general seemed like an option. But Trump helped disabuse many of that notion and made the ‘lesser of two evils’ substantial enough a difference to get through to all but the most hopelessly naive and idealistic.
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.
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