A new poll released on Monday showed 1 in 5 voters would be open to the possibility of voting for independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during the 2024 elections.
Meanwhile, only 1 in 4 registered voters were enthusiastic about a possible rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, according to a Monmouth University poll.
BIDEN LOSING YOUNG VOTERS TO TRUMP AS HE FALLS BEHIND IN TWO SWING STATES
The poll, however, was unclear on how much impact Kennedy would have as he pulled support equally from both Trump, the GOP primary front-runner, and Biden.
Of the 1 in 5 voters who are open to voting for Kennedy are the 6% who said they definitely would vote for Kennedy and 15% who probably would, which would cost Trump and Biden 14% of their respective bases in a hypothetical contest.
The voters who said they would definitely vote for Kennedy would cost Biden 4% of his support and Trump 3% of his support. Nearly half of the voters who won’t support Biden or Trump said they would definitely (15%) or probably (34%) support Kennedy.
“We are seeing a pretty even contest so far. This may be the case whether or not Kennedy is running, at least at this early stage before voters have really tuned in to the alternatives,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.
Kennedy originally ran as a Democratic challenger to Biden before switching to an independent presidential campaign. Conservatives appeared friendly to Kennedy when it seemed that he could cost Biden crucial votes, but as some polls suggested he would hurt Trump’s campaign, they have seemingly cooled on him.
In October, when Kennedy made his independent switch, both the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee denounced him. “Voters should not be deceived by anyone who pretends to have conservative values,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.
In the same vein, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel called him a “Democrat in Independent’s clothing” in a statement at the time.
Nearly a quarter, 24%, of voters have a favorable opinion of Kennedy while 34% hold an unfavorable view, with Democrats (55%) more likely than Republicans (17%) to have unfavorable views of him. And in a sign of how much recognition his last name attracts, only 13% of voters said they had never heard of Kennedy. Half of the participants surveyed said they were aware of Kennedy’s controversial claims that autism is linked to COVID-19 vaccines.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“Kennedy’s name may be well-known, but his policy positions are not. However, it’s not clear that knowing those positions will move his support levels either up or down. At the current time, he appears to be more of a placeholder for expressing some generalized dissatisfaction with the likely trajectory of the 2024 nomination process,” Murray said.
The poll was conducted by telephone from Nov. 30 to Dec. 4 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
