Yes, that roaring sound followed by tinkling glass is Donald Trump bellowing like a wounded water buffalo and hurling ketchup bottles. This is not his week. He was hoping that if he said nice things about Barack and Michelle Obama that they wouldn’t tell the truth about him, which is an absurd proposition. In any event, Trump was made to *lower* himself for nothing and there may be a job opening in Trump world soon, depending upon whose great idea it was for Trump to say he respected the Obamas.
So while poor Donald is recuperating from the slings and arrows of the Obamas’ sharp wit and juggling appearances in North Carolina and Arizona, RFK, Jr. is ready to tank Trump’s campaign even further than it is. Maybe not on purpose, but that’s the result that will likely happen. Here’s how we know. The Washington Post is reporting on what happened with RFK supporters when Kamala Harris entered the race. A lot of them broke for Harris, not for Trump. This is ascertainable fact although I wouldn’t want to be the one to break it to Donald. Now a CAVEAT: how a poll has gone before is not rock solid evidence of how it will go in the event of a shakeup. We saw Harris polling low along with Biden until she took the number one spot and you know the rest.
From Kennedy’s perspective, the move [to leave the race] makes sense. He doesn’t have much support in national polling and has struggled to make it onto state ballots. But the single-digit support he has might be useful to Trump or to Vice President Kamala Harris, given the closeness of the race. Why not see if either more-viable candidate wants to make commitments aligned with Kennedy’s agenda in exchange for his voters?
The question, of course, is how many of those voters Kennedy could actually deliver? How many of them, instead, would simply stay home? […]
We know that the transition from Biden to Harris cut into his support significantly, in part because more voters seemed to be taking the contest seriously, and in part because some of his support was rooted in people who disliked both Biden and Trump. With Biden out, many of them shifted to Harris.
You can see that in Pew Research Center’s polling released last week. In July, Trump had a lead over Biden, with Kennedy earning the support of nearly 1 in 6 respondents. In the new poll, Harris is up — and Kennedy’s support has been cut in half. Of those who supported Kennedy in July, 4 in 10 shifted to Harris (compared with 2 in 10 who switched to Trump).
That could suggest that more of what’s left of Kennedy’s support is aligned with Trump, meaning that a Kennedy withdrawal might boost Trump anyway. But we do have some data to suggest what a Trump-Harris contest might look like: polls that include both a head-to-head and multicandidate question.
In a poll done by Washington Post, ABC News and Ipsos, Harris has a three-point edge over Trump among registered voters when Kennedy is included — and a four-point edge when it’s just her against Trump. “The poll also included a small number of Kennedy supporters (again, because he doesn’t have that much support) but they were more likely to view Harris favorably (29 percent) than Trump (15 percent). They were also more likely to view Trump strongly unfavorably; 41 percent did.” You can see a few obvious problems here: polling RFK supporters is like pulling hens’ teeth. First you need to find them.
Then there’s the double hater category, where people support RFK Jr. because they don’t like Harris or Trump. Those people will logically just stay home when their alternative candidate folds.
The Post speculates that if Trump picks up “fully half” of Kennedy’s supporters, “it adds a few points to his national support and, according to 538’s average, still has him trailing Harris.” So it’s a cup of water in the ocean, then, it’s not going to make a big difference in overall volume. And remember, Kennedy is “viewed more negatively than positively by a six-point margin in 538’s average.”
My sense of it is that RFK Jr.’s followers, few that they are, will stay home. And anything can happen in politics. But the way things have already broken, and the way some of RFK Jr. supporters immediately broke for Harris, RFK’s departure is not going to be Trump’s salvation. As a matter of fact, RFK Jr. was of more use to Trump staying in the race and bleeding off a couple of votes here and there in every precinct — hopefully from Harris. That was the plan, that in swing states there would be a heavy MAGA turnout and RFK Jr. votes would subtract from the votes that were winnable by Harris. Now, with it down to Harris and Trump, only, Trump can’t depend upon that.
Don’t forget some are just phucking idiots and trying to find reason amongst them is like trying to find the Holy Grail.