U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will likely be a key factor in who wins the 2024 election.
Many are anticipating a rematch race between Biden and Trump next year. The poll revealed that the election would be too close to call. Biden received 47% of the votes, while Trump received 46%.
In a recent poll, the former Democrat turned Independent received 22% of the votes in a hypothetical three-way race against President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Biden would take 39% of the votes, while Trump received 36%, according to the Quinnipiac University’s survey.
According to the poll, Kennedy is the top presidential candidate with voters 18 to 34 years of age. For the same age group, 32% chose Biden and 27% went for Trump.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) November 10, 2023
Democrats and Republicans have dominated presidential politics for more than a century, but third party candidates have influenced election outcomes in the past. In 2016, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson was accused by many of stealing the election for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, receiving over 3% of the votes.
The last independent presidential candidate to earn over 20% support in a poll within a year of the election was Ross Perot in 1992. He ended up with 19% of the popular vote during the election.
Kennedy has more of a following with Republican voters than Democrats, who see the presidential candidate’s viewpoints as controversial. The candidate is known for his anti-vaccine stance.
RFK JR: "Your chance of dying of a heart attack from that vaccine, according to their own [Pfizer] studies, is 500 % GREATER than if you're unvaccinated. So they knew they were gonna kill a lot of people, and they did it anyway."pic.twitter.com/bnox63FRjy
— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) November 4, 2023
According to a recent Politico analysis, Kennedy has pulled millions of dollars from people who didn’t donate in the past two presidential elections, which might mean trouble for the Biden and Trump campaigns.
Republican strategists said they see advantages and disadvantages to Kennedy’s presence in the race.
“It could certainly siphon some votes from Trump, but it will certainly hurt Biden much more,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell, who argued that Trump voters were more enthusiastic than Biden’s.
Kennedy is expecting to be added to the ballot in all 50 states.
