President Joe Biden‘s reelection campaign is being complicated by a primary challenge from a Democratic candidate with a famous political last name and another third-party bid.
But as the White House and Biden campaign downplay the challenges created by Democratic challenger Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and independent bids by the Green Party’s Cornel West and No Labels, Democrats are imploring them not to be complacent.
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What Democrats should have learned from past experience is that “ignoring” candidates, even from protest campaigns including those of Ralph Nader or “gadflies” such as Jill Stein, is “a bad idea,” according to Democratic strategist Matt Bennett.
“So, Biden and all Democrats must pay attention, first to Kennedy and then to No Labels and West,” Bennett told the Washington Examiner.
For instance, Kennedy may have “no chance” of winning the Democratic nomination, but he represents a “considerable” lack of enthusiasm for Biden, per Dan Schnur, the former communications director of Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain‘s 2000 presidential campaign.
“No incumbent president in the modern era has ever won reelection after facing a significant primary challenge,” Schnur said, citing former Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush.
“None of their challengers won the nomination, but all exposed weaknesses that ultimately cost these presidents their reelection,” the founder of the University of Southern California-Los Angeles Times state poll added. “The Biden campaign needs to make sure that Democratic primary voters see Kennedy as a nuisance and nothing more.”
But Bennett, co-founder of centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, contended “paying attention” to Kennedy, West, and No Labels does not necessarily mean “engaging,” particularly as he described Kennedy as “a conspiracy-spreading, anti-vax, pro-Russia crank.”
“If he must be attacked, others, beyond the Biden campaign, can do it,” Bennett said of Kennedy. “The same is true of the third-party bids. We are helping to lead a coalition against No Labels because the Biden team shouldn’t engage with them at this stage. If West turns into a significant threat, we’ll need an effort aimed at that as well.”
The Biden campaign points to last week’s Quinnipiac University poll, which found Kennedy had a 39% unfavorability rating among Democrats. Another quarter of Democratic respondents considered him favorably, although more than a third told pollsters they have not formed an opinion yet. But the same poll found Kennedy, who has Silicon Valley support from the likes of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, received 17% of the vote to Biden’s 70%. Author Marianne Williamson had 8% support as Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats continue to protest Biden’s primary calendar reforms, which temporarily promote South Carolina. Biden’s RealClearPolitics average is 62% support to Kennedy’s 16% and Williamson’s 6%.
Despite Bennett’s and Schnur’s warnings, Northeastern University political science professor and Chairman Costas Panagopoulos underscored the aspirational reality of Kennedy’s campaign and third-party bids, more broadly. Panagopoulos did note independent campaigns can become “spoilers.” For example, philosopher West last week decided to seek the Green Party‘s nomination instead of that of the People’s Party so he can be on more ballots, including in the important battleground states of Michigan and Wisconsin, though not Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.
As the Republican National Committee defends asking GOP presidential candidates to take a loyalty pledge to participate in its debates, for Panagopoulos, the “greatest chance” for “such an upset” is if former President Donald Trump does not win the nomination and runs as an independent.
“Such a move could derail things for Republicans in several states in the general election,” he said. “Generally, voters would put party over personality, but many of Trump’s voters could easily put the man before the party.”
The Trump campaign is not thinking about a third-party bid, repeating the former president is “dominating” in “every single poll, both primary and general.”
“Recent polls show he has a commanding lead over Joe Biden and is the person best positioned to take back the White House,” spokesman Steven Cheung said.
No Labels, a centrist political organization, has reiterated that it will only nominate a unity ticket if it has “a realistic path to outright victory in the Electoral College,” which would require “both major party nominees being very unpopular with voters,” according to spokeswoman Maryanne Martini.
“We have so far to go, and we’re not going to change our strategy based on any of these short-term developments,” she said. “We’re working to get ballot access everywhere so we can make the best decision we can before our convention in April 2024.”
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Biden is in California this week to amplify his climate change mitigation policies alongside Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and a series of high-dollar fundraisers before next month’s financial disclosure deadline, the first since he announced his reelection campaign in April. The president appeared at his first rally last weekend in Philadelphia, a 2,000-person event organized by labor union partners.
“If Republicans come after what I’ve done, when they come back to try to get rid of all these clean energy investments and they try to stop the plan on infrastructure, when they try to do these things, guess what?” he said. “They’re coming for your jobs. They’re coming for your jobs.”
