Will RFK dropping out of the US election benefit Trump or Harris?
RFK has thrown his support behind Donald Trump - but will it help or hinder his chances?
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In brief
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK) has suspended his independent presidential campaign in swing states and endorsed Donald Trump.
- The impact of RFK's decision is unclear, with debates on whether it will benefit Trump by redirecting RFK's supporters to him, or Harris by potentially returning left-leaning voters to the Democrats.
- RFK's endorsement could be a double-edged sword for Trump, potentially bringing in some voters but also adding to the ‘weird’ narrative Harris and Walz are pursuing.
What’s the story?
He stood as an independent, previously criticising both the Republican and the Democrat campaigns, but Robert F. Kennedy Junior (RFK) has now suspended his campaign in critical swing states and publicly endorsed Donald Trump, attending one of his rallies in Arizona. He will however, remain on the ballot in other states.
The question now is, how will the people who would have voted for RFK were he still in the race, vote now?
Does this benefit Trump or Harris?
“RFK Jr has been a kind of thorn in the side of American politics,” Jon says on the latest episode of The News Agents USA.
“People can't quite calculate whether he does more harm to Trump or whether he does more harm to Kamala Harris.”
RFK was a third option for Americans who didn’t want to vote Democrat or Republican. With his omission from the race in some key areas, will his supporters do what he’s asked of them and vote for Trump?
Trump’s team seems to think so. Following RFK’s exit, they released a memo saying; “this is good news for President Trump and his campaign – plain and simple,” alongside some polling from battleground states.
Kennedy has said that he will remove his name from the ballot in swing states in an effort to push those voters to vote for Trump instead.
But there are arguments that RFK’s dropping out of the race could benefit Harris as some of his support from the left potentially revert back to the Democrats.
He is a member of one of the Democrats’ most famous families - nephew of former president John. F Kennedy and son of Robert Kennedy, who was the U.S attorney general in the JFK administration. RFK previously endorsed Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and himself ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2023.
However RFK is possibly even more famous for his wild conspiracy theories than he is for his political roots, most notably he is a prominent anti-vaxxer.
Some of his most recent controversies include staging a murder scene of a dead bear cub in Central Park, claiming he has a worm living inside his brain and apparently, cutting off a dead whale’s head with a chainsaw.
Harris and Walz have already honed in on the narrative that Trump and the Republicans are ‘weird’, does an RFK endorsement finish the job off for them?
After all, as Emily says, “he's a man who, by his own confession, has a worm in his brain”.
What’s The News Agents take?
Recently returning from the Democratic National Convention, Jon told how “on Thursday in Chicago last week, it was a rather sad sight of seeing a stall near the city's art museum that were just giving away [RFK’s] merch because they realised that the campaign was about to end.”
Speaking of the rally in which he made the endorsement, Jon notes that during his speech RFK admitted that Harris wouldn’t take his call.
“Well, played Kamala Harris for not taking the call,” Jon says.
“Because you're putting yourself on the side of kind of normality and normalcy, rather than some of the nuttier fringes.”
“I think, given that the Harris campaign has already deemed Trump to be the weird guy. Having an even weirder guy who is now part of your team, who's now part of your entourage, one of your surrogates, is, dare I say, a weird thing to do,” Emily says.
The difference RFK’s endorsement makes may be slim, as Jon points out, “he has not been as significant a force as he was”, with his polling numbers dwindling as the race went on he “was becoming a more and more marginal figure.”
But does anyone stand to win, at all, from the move?
“Right now it is, I think it is dangerous for both of them, frankly,” Emily says.
“I think he would have taken votes from Trump so Kamala Harris may find that those margins really bleed into what could be a very, very tiny lead for her, but I think it's also dangerous for Trump because suddenly he's got this albatross around his neck.”