When Kennedy Jr. is included as an Indy candidate, Trump leads Biden in 5 of 6 swing states polled ...

Twitter/X ^ | Oct 15 | IAPolls2022

[RandFan]

@IAPolls2022

"When Kennedy Jr. is included as an indy candidate, Trump leads Joe Biden in 5 of 6 swing states polled."

AZ

Trump 42% (+5)

Biden 37%

Kennedy Jr 8%

~~

GA

Trump 41% (+3)

Biden 38%

Kennedy Jr 8%

~~

MI

Trump 40% (+2)

Biden 38%

Kennedy Jr 7%

~~

PA

Trump 39% (=)

Biden 39%

Kennedy Jr 9%

~~

NC

Trump 41% (+3)

Biden 38%

Kennedy Jr 9%

~~

FL

Trump 44% (+8)

Biden 37%

Kennedy Jr 8%

[RandFan]

I'm surprised how well RFK Jr is polling out of the gate.

Can he crack the debate threshold?

[joma89]

The modern day Ross Perot but sticking it to the democrats this time.

[RandFan]

Correct.

[MNJohnnie]

And almost all of that is coming from Trump’s votes.

Kennedy is the Uniparty spoiler. It is his only reason to be in the race. It gives Rinos and indys who don’t like either Biden or Trump a reason to vote.

[ClearCase_guy]

I have never understood how RFK jr was going to grab a lot of MAGA voters away from Trump. It has always seemed obvious to me that many Democrat voters, given a choice between the Kennedy family and Biden, would gladly move away from Biden.

[RandFan]

He’s a raving liberal except he says some good stuff on vaccines

This will become clearer in a General Election.

I’ve always thought he’d take the votes from Biden and Democrats.

There are a lot of scare stories in the media.

[joma89]

I found out many years later that Perot was good friends with the clintons and had a beef with bush.

[DugwayDuke]

I wouldn’t get too excited about an internet poll where people opt in. Just remember the calls on FR to ‘freep’ various polls.

[RandFan]

There’s a lot of wishful thinking in the media and frankly dumb comments suggesting he will hurt Trump. I think it’ll be the opposite.

He’s a lefty.

For example: How’s his gun control message going to come across ??

There are dozens of other examples.

[HIDEK6]

That’s all bullshit and you know it. “Swing states” are “Fixed states.”

[DavidThomas]

I only believe polls that tell me what I want to hear. The other ones cause me anxiety, so I minimize them.

[wiseprince]

Yup, right wing media fell for it. All of his interviews should be like thr Hannity one that points out how Liberal he is.

[catnipman]

“It has always seemed obvious to me that many Democrat voters, given a choice between the Kennedy family and Biden, would gladly move away from Biden.”

indeed ...

only those who HATE biden and HATE trump AND are quite happy with the status quo will throw their vote away on a 3rd party candidate who has zero chance to change the status quo ...

all those who are truly unhappy and disgusted and/or have been reduced to penury by the policies of the bidenistas and are desperate for change will NOT waste their votes on a symbolic 3rd party candidate but instead WILL vote for change ...

all the strum and drang by the deep state democrat fascist propaganda media that RFKJ is the great trump slayer is just that: propaganda ... either that or they’re just whistling past the graveyard ...

[x]

1. That may have been based in part on people here and elsewhere on the Internet who liked Bobby Jr. so much that they wanted Trump to pick him as a running mate.

2. I don’t think it’s so much die-hard Trump voters who were a concern, but the swing voters who may have gone for Trump in 2016 and then stayed home or voted for Biden in 2020. The idea was that those disaffected, anti-Establishment voters would go for Kennedy this time, but it looks like the potential Trump voters who might desert may be outnumbered by disaffected Democrats who have come to dislike and distrust Biden.

3. PA, MI, and WI are some of the Northeast/Midwest states where the Kennedy family was popular and defections to Kennedy would be expected. In other parts of the country it was believed that Kennedy might draw more votes from Trump. That’s looking a bit shaky now, since according to the polls, Kennedy hurts Biden more than Trump in GA and NC. Admittedly, those were states John F. Kennedy carried in 1960, but the poll does indicate that there are plenty of Southern Democrat voters who would prefer Kennedy to Biden. Probably Southern Republicans have more reasons to distrust Kennedy.

[MNJohnnie]

There a lot of anti Biden voters who don’t like Trump.

So Kennedy splits the Anti Biden vote in the middle. Dems only need a few % split to swing purple states to Biden

Dem voters will vote for “their team” they do not split off and chase third party fabels. The idea that Kennedy hurts Biden is nonsense. If he did, the Dems would of paid him off to make sure he would not be in the race.

[GOPJ]

bump to the top

[MNJohnnie]

How about you quit clinging to wishful thinking and look at the data?

I keep hearing the Kennedy fans saying that “he hurts Biden” but the polling data does not show this.

The only thing Kennedy does is split the anti Biden vote. That helps only Biden

[Theoria]

Perot identified the problems, and those problems still haven't been fixed. It was the fault of the R's and D's who never tried to fix those problems. I've never met a Perot or Buchanan voter who apologized for supporting them.

Kennedy is no Perot, there will be no massive take from Trump or Biden.

[Dan in Wichita]

I found out many years later that Perot was good friends with the clintons and had a beef with bush.

That was obvious in 1992.

[Dr. Franklin]

I'm surprised how well RFK Jr is polling out of the gate.
Can he crack the debate threshold?

Third party/independent candidate usually poll well early. People tend to leave them if they feel they can't win the election, which is what happened to Perot in '92. Dems voting for RFK, Jr. means that they can't win, because he takes away more votes than they can steal in their large urban bases.