The consensus that emerged among pollsters and pundits across the political spectrum after RFK Jr.’s shock endorsement of Donald Trump was that it would have little effect on the outcome. But does that consensus reflect the same groupthink that missed the Trump surprise in 2016?
The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal warned that while Kennedy’s backing could possibly help Trump marginally in battleground states, “the price could be high if it includes putting Mr. Kennedy in a second Trump Administration,” concluding that “Mr. Trump’s best response is to thank RFK Jr. for his support, make no promises about the future, and by all means avoid joint campaign appearances” to avoid the taint of association with his fringe positions.
ABC News’ 538 polling site assured readers that “our analysis of the polling data suggests Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump will have a minimal impact on the race. Kennedy, who has consistently polled around 5 percent since Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee, was drawing roughly equally from both Trump and Harris … [T]he effect of his departure on overall support for either candidate will be small.”
The New York Times’ analysis of the move asserts that the endorsement “is unlikely to change the nature of the race … in part because it is hard to know how many of Mr. Kennedy’s supporters will vote in November. They are less likely than others to have voted in 2020, and are also less likely to say they will vote come November.”
What these static, conventional assessments miss is the very dynamic that stunned the political world in 2016 when Trump outperformed polling averages by unprecedented margins to win a victory that virtually no one in the establishment saw coming: The activation of the disaffected, hidden voting blocks bound together only by their common hatred of that establishment.
Kennedy’s supporters number far more than the 5 percent of the electorate reflected in recent polling after the major party establishments and corporate media marginalized his campaign. Polls taken before he was frozen out of the presidential debate (despite exceeding the established criteria) showed nearly a quarter of the electorate supporting his candidacy, with even stronger levels of support among younger voters. Thirty-two years ago, Ross Perot won 19 percent of the vote in the general election on the strength of his debate performances; it was a foregone conclusion that RFK Jr.’s support would inevitably melt away without access to the only platform that bestows legitimacy in the eyes of most voters.
The truth is, few in Kennedy’s coalition of anti-war, medical freedom, and free-speech advocates against the D.C. power structure would have felt highly motivated to turn out for either of the major party alternatives if RFK Jr. had simply withdrawn from the race. The fact that Kennedy not only endorsed Trump but indicated that he would likely be taking a role in policy and personnel decisions in another Trump administration gives his supporters the opportunity to cast a vote for his agenda rather than for Donald Trump, about whom they are unenthusiastic at best. With Kennedy actively campaigning for Trump and making the case that a Harris-Walz administration would be catastrophic on every issue they care about means it is highly likely they will turn out for Bobby rather than stay at home, even if they are too embarrassed to tell pollsters or acquaintances that they are voting for Orange Man Bad.
Each part of this coalition — those opposing the foreign policy control of the military-industrial complex, those concerned about the chronic health epidemic, those gravely troubled by the continuing assaults on free speech — is highly informed and highly motivated on their issues. Most of them feel they have no voice in the current system and no leverage in the current power structure. RFK Jr. may have just changed that calculus.
Some of the more perceptive pollsters acknowledged after their historic miss in 2016 that they simply weren’t picking up on the hidden voters, the anti-establishment Bernie Bros and right-wing hippies who saw a vote for Trump as their opportunity to give a giant middle finger to the establishment that had left them and the issues they cared about behind. Many of them were mightily disillusioned by Trump’s inability to drain the swamp in his first term. That coalition, the least likely of all to show up in polling data, has once again been activated.
Brian Robertson served for over a decade in the U.S. Senate as a senior policy advisor for the Joint Economic Committee and for Sen. Sam Brownback. He worked for the Trump administration at both HHS and the Department of State.
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