Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign appears to be hurting Donald Trump more than it does President Joe Biden, according to a recent NBC News poll.
In a head-to-head contest, Trump leads Biden by a narrow margin of 2 percent. However, when third-party candidates, including Kennedy, are included in the mix, Biden takes the lead with 39 percent of the vote compared to Trump’s 37 percent and Kennedy’s 13 percent. Other candidates, Jill Stein and Cornel West, receive 3 percent and 2 percent of the vote, respectively.
The poll data reveals that 15 percent of respondents who initially chose Trump in the head-to-head matchup switched their support to Kennedy in the five-way race. In comparison, Biden lost just 7 percent of his support when Kennedy and others were included.
Republican voters generally hold a positive view of Kennedy, with 40 percent expressing a favorable opinion compared to only 15 percent who have a negative opinion. In contrast, a majority of Democratic voters have a negative view of Kennedy, with just 16 percent viewing him positively.
“At this stage, [Kennedy’s] appeal looks to be more with Trump than Biden voters,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt, who conducted the NBC News survey along with Republican pollster Bill McInturff.
These findings differ from the results of other national polls that have suggested a larger third-party vote would hurt Biden more than Trump. The Biden campaign has responded to such surveys by actively appealing to Kennedy voters, including a recent campaign stop in Philadelphia where the president highlighted support from other members of the Kennedy family.
McInturuff acknowledges the possibility that the NBC News poll may be an outlier. However, he also notes the possibility that “our survey is a harbinger of what’s to come.”
