WASHINGTON (AP) — Recent polls show Republicans are more likely to have a positive opinion of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. than Democrats, as allies of Donald Trump urge the independent presidential candidate to withdraw and support the former Republican president.
Kennedy’s support appears to have waned in recent polls as he struggles to find his political path in a race reshaped by the departure of Democratic President Joe Biden and the nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris in his place. The developments have left relatively little room for Kennedy’s presence — or potential departure — to make a difference in the election’s outcome. Recent polls give no clear indication that Kennedy’s presence in the race is having an outsized impact on support for either major-party candidate.
While some polls earlier this year had Kennedy’s support in the double digits, his support now hovers in the mid-single digits in the most recent polls. It’s unclear whether Kennedy would even receive that level of support in the general election, since third-party candidates often fall short of their early poll numbers when voters actually cast their ballots.
Kennedy is expected to speak in Phoenix on Friday “about the current historic moment and his path forward,” just days after his running mate openly discussed the possibility that he could withdraw and support Trump.
Partisan call
In recent months, opinions among Americans have been divided about the 70-year-old Kennedy, the son of former US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
About the same number of people had positive as negative views of Kennedy, according to a July AP-NORC poll conducted before Biden dropped out of the presidential race last month. That’s a decline from February, when more respondents had positive than negative views of Kennedy, with about 3 in 10 undecided.
The most recent poll found that about 2 in 10 American adults don’t know enough about Kennedy to form an opinion.
Republicans were significantly more likely than Democrats and independents to have a positive opinion of Kennedy. And those with a positive impression of Kennedy were also more likely to have a positive opinion of Trump (52%) than Harris (37%).
Kennedy also struggled to endear himself to political independents. Although he ran as an independent candidate for president, polls show that about 4 in 10 independents did not know enough to form an opinion. Those who did know were about evenly divided between positive and negative opinions.
The basis of support
Kennedy’s appeal was largely based on the fact that he offered an alternative to the matchup that many Americans feared when Biden ran against Trump in a rematch of the 2020 election that Biden won. A July Pew Research Center poll found that about half of voters who supported Kennedy said the main reason they backed him was because he was neither Biden nor Trump, compared with about 3 in 10 who cited Kennedy’s characteristics or policies.
Harris’s move to the top of the Democratic ticket may have further damaged Kennedy’s prospects. An August Pew poll suggested that Harris has gained support at Kennedy’s expense. She appears to have won the support of some female and nonwhite voters who previously considered Kennedy.
About that family name
Kennedy’s initial appeal focused largely on his family name and his connections to other famous Kennedys, including his father and his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy. CNN polls conducted last summer, when RFK Jr. was running for the Democratic nomination, showed that many Democrats said they would consider supporting him because of the Kennedy name or his family connections. Many members of the Kennedy family endorsed Biden before he dropped out of the race.
John F. Kennedy remains the highest-rated former president in Gallup’s retrospective approval ratings, and his appeal crosses party lines. Nine in 10 Americans approve of how Kennedy, a Democrat, has done his job as president, according to data from last summer, with Democrats, independents and Republicans agreeing.
News of Robert Kennedy’s possible withdrawal comes a little over a week after a New York judge ruled that he would not be allowed on the state ballot because he had listed a “fake address” on nominating petitions. Kennedy has appealed, but has faced multiple similar challenges across the country.
