It’s Official, RFK Jr. Is Spoiling Trump’s Numbers, He Retaliates

Intriguing that Team Trump would let something like this slip out from their fearless leader. If this isn’t a show of weakness, I don’t know what is. After all, we have been told in no uncertain terms by Donald Trump that he doesn’t need any of Nikki Haley’s votes and moreover that he will ban anybody from MAGA who ever gave her a nickel. So now, in light of that, Trump is saying that he might need some of the votes that RFK Jr. is bleeding away from him? Thinks are getting curiouser and curiouser.

I guess Steve Bannon convincing RFK Jr to run isn’t working out how they thought. pic.twitter.com/jr1SGUjodT

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 27, 2024

This just goes to show you that the laws of political physics are still wonky with Trump in the mix. Generally speaking, third party candidates bleed votes away from the Democrat. But, in this case, the prediction seems to be true, that the far right-wing cranks on the end of the bell shaped curve are choosing to vote for Kennedy over Trump.

Or at least Trump believes that they are or at the very least he fears that they are. We can only assume that Chris LaCivita or Susie Wiles got hold of some internal polling and were alarmed. They’re right to be alarmed, about Kennedy and about everything, but telling Trump was not the smoothest move, in my opinion.

Although this could add a new dimension to the race. Maybe Trump will disparage Kennedy from the podium at his rallies. That could get intriguing, because Kennedy’s obvious rejoinder would be to trot out Trump’s pro-vaccine, pro Operation Warp Drive material and use that against him.

Sheer, spiraling fear is right. And Trump has a lot to fear. His is not the normal fear of losing the election and all that entails, which for most people is elder statesman status and a lobbying job on K Street. No, his is the fear that when he loses the election he’ll have nothing standing between himself and the rest of his criminal trials and one (or more) of them could result in a prison sentence. And then what?

So yes, Trump is very upset at this point. And you well know how he uses social media to process his feelings. You, me, the other 330 million Americans are all part of an open air therapy group devoted to Donald Trump — at least in his mind, we have no higher purpose then listening to him vent and making it our highest priority and should be thrilled with the opportunity to do so.

Trump jumped on social media to share his fears of Kennedy and this won’t be the last time. We don’t know what triggered him, I suspect only his inner circle knows that. Maybe they came across this, on Daily Kos.

In the NBC poll, Biden trailed Trump by 2 points in the head-to-head matchup, 44% to 46%. But when the survey was expanded to include RFK Jr., Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and Harvard professor Cornel West, Biden notched a 2-point lead over Trump.

• Biden: 39%.
• Trump: 37%. 
• Kennedy: 13%. 
• Jill Stein: 3%.  
• Cornel West: 2%.

The disparity in outcomes is mainly driven by RFK Jr., who picks up 15% of Trump’s support in the head-to-head while attracting only 7% of Biden’s original voters.

Republican voters also hold a far more favorable view of Kennedy than Democratic voters do, according to the NBC poll. While a 40% plurality of GOP voters view Kennedy positively, he is 37 points underwater with Democrats at 16% positive vs. 53% negative.

The Marist poll shows the third-party candidates capturing a very similar amount of the electorate, with Kennedy at14%, Stein at 2%, and West at 2%. But Kennedy’s impact on Trump is slightly less pronounced, pulling only 6 more points away from him than Biden (vs. 8 points in the NBC poll): 17% of Trump voters threw their support behind Kennedy in this poll, compared to 11% of Biden voters. 

2 new polls show Robert F. Kennedy Jr. taking more from voters who picked Trump in the head-to-head than Biden.

Marist:
17% of Trump voters
11% of Biden voters

NBC:
15% of Trump voters
7% of Biden votershttps://t.co/dY7bRZTwVY pic.twitter.com/y9B4LQhcfn

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) April 22, 2024

On an intuitive level this feels right. I don’t know what younger Democrats who weren’t alive in the era of Jack and Bobby think about RFK, Jr. but the boomers hate his guts. He’s nothing like his father or his uncle. He may have their DNA and their name but he doesn’t have their character, their intellect, their worldview or their souls.

In any event, you’ve seen what’s here, Trump has seen what’s here, and he’s finding it alarming, evidently. Remember, he was all for Kennedy and he was all for No Labels. No Labels is off the boards now and Kennedy is working Trump’s side of the fence.

Expect the ketchup bottles to fly.