Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says President Joe Biden is the real "spoiler" in the 2024 presidential race, and he has a plan to make Biden drop out.
On Wednesday, Kennedy proposed to take a "no-spoiler" pledge with the Democratic president at a campaign event in New York Wednesday.
The pledge states that Kennedy and Biden would co-fund a 50-state poll of more than 30,000 people in mid-October. The poll would pit each of them against the presumptive Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, in a two-man race. Kennedy wants Biden to pledge that whoever performs weakest against Trump would then drop out.
As his rationale for the pledge, Kennedy Jr. showed results from a campaign-commissioned poll that highlighted scenarios where he could win against both Biden and Trump in separate, head-to-head battles.
Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, is the third child of former Democratic U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy and his wife, Ethel. He is the nephew of former Democratic President John F. Kennedy.
"If I remain in the race and the election were held today, President Trump would win and President Biden would lose," Kennedy said Wednesday. "President Trump is not a spoiler, because he can actually win, but I'm happy to make this same pledge with President Trump because I can do better against President Biden than President Trump can."
"People who are voting for President Trump because they're afraid of President Biden should be supporting me, and vice versa. Ultimately, I think what we all want in this election is for Americans not to feel they have to vote out of fear," he continued.
According to a new Emerson College/The Hill poll, Kennedy is hurting Biden's chances of reelection more than Trump's in five key battleground states.
Biden is trailing Trump marginally in the states of Arizona (48 percent to 44 percent), Georgia (47 percent to 44 percent), Michigan (45 percent to 44 percent), Nevada (45 percent to 44 percent), North Carolina (47 percent to 42 percent), Pennsylvania (47 percent to 45 percent) and Wisconsin (47 percent to 45 percent) in a two-person race.
When third-party candidates such as RFK Jr. are included, the poll revealed that more support is pulled away from Biden than from Trump in the states of Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, support is drawn evenly from each candidate in the states of Arizona and Michigan.
In an email response to Newsweek Thursday morning, Matt Corridoni, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said the independent candidate is the spoiler." Corridoni pointed to the fact that Trump and Kennedy share a top donor, Timothy Mellon, heir to the Mellon banking fortune, to their presidential campaigns.
"Robert F. Kennedy Jr is a spoiler-recruited by the MAGA (Make America Great Again) GOP and propped up by Trump's largest donor," Corridoni said.
In an emailed response to Newsweek Wednesday afternoon, Brian Hughes, a senior adviser on the Trump campaign, said that Kennedy is an "existential threat" to Biden and not Trump.
"Kennedy is an ultra-leftist who has voiced imposing a 70 percent tax, wants to implement a carbon tax on hardworking American families, supports the complete elimination of fossil fuels and has called the NRA a terror group. That's why Biden and his liberal cronies are desperately fighting to keep Kennedy off the ballot in several states," Hughes said.
In recent posts on his Truth Social platform, Trump has turned up his own attacks against Kennedy, including calling him a "Democratic plant."
"A Vote for Junior' would essentially be a WASTED PROTEST VOTE, that could swing either way, but would only swing against the Democrats if Republicans knew the true story about him," Trump wrote in a post.
In response, Kennedy called Trump "unhinged" and challenged him to a debate.
"When frightened men take to social media they risk descending into vitriol, which makes them sound unhinged," Kennedy wrote on April 27 on X, formerly Twitter. "President Trump's rant against me is a barely coherent barrage of wild and inaccurate claims that should best be resolved in the American tradition of presidential debate."
In March, Kennedy announced Nicole Shanahan, a California-based attorney and entrepreneur, as his running mate.
The Kennedy campaign says it has collected enough signatures for ballot access in Hawaii, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire and North Carolina. The Kennedy-Shanahan ticket is officially on the ballot in Utah and Michigan.
Update: 5/2/2024, 10:20 a.m.: This story was updated with comments from the Democratic National Committee.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Gabe Whisnant is Deputy Weekend Editor at Newsweek based in South Carolina. Prior to joining Newsweek in 2023, he directed ... Read more
