“If most come from Biden why should Trump minimize him”
Because, votes matter, why would you EVER not to everything you can to minimize your loss of votes to another candidate?
If say for example Trump loses 1 vote for ever 2 votes Biden loses, Biden will still lose far more votes than Trump, but RFK would need to pull in about 12% of the vote for Trump to win any place Biden’s lead without RFK is < 4.
12% RFK (2/3 from Biden = 8 points, Trump 4 points)
If however, Trump can hold onto some of those voters, so that Biden loses 3 votes for every 1 vote Trump loses, then RFK would get not 12% of the vote, but 10.6% of the vote (same 8% from Biden, but only 2.6% from Trump.)
So Trump wins any place where Biden’s lead without RFK is < 5.4
Just because your opponent is going to lose more votes than you will to the third party, doesn’t mean you don’t work hard to minimize your losses to them.
All RFK Jr needs is 15% to get into the debates. Once you are at that stage all bets are off. There isn’t a lot Trump can do one on one, especially if Biden doesn’t show which he has floated as a possible scenario.
“Because, votes matter, why would you EVER not to everything you can to minimize your loss of votes to another candidate?”
Because, as you said, RFK takes more votes from Biden so minimizing him gives more votes to Biden than to Trump.