Biden’s polls improve as Kennedy and third-party factor shifts

Biden’s polls improve as Kennedy and third-party factor shifts

It’s been something approaching an article of faith on the left and in some corners of the media that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. poses a spoiler threat to President Biden’s reelection.

It’s never been quite clear that’ll be the case, though, particularly given that Kennedy is much more popular among Republicans than Democrats.

And now, there are growing signs that Kennedy and his fellow third-party candidates might not cost Biden after all. Indeed, they — and particularly Kennedy — could actually pull more from Trump.

Two new high-quality polls since Sunday bear this out.

The latest is from Marist College on Monday. It shows Biden at 51 percent and Trump at 48 percent in a national head-to-head contest. But when you factor in third-party candidates — Kennedy, Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent Cornel West — Biden’s lead goes to five percentage points, larger than the poll’s 3.6-point margin of error.

Marist has long been one of Biden’s better polls. But that’s his best showing in a high-quality poll for many months.

An NBC News poll Sunday showed a similar dynamic. While Biden trailed by two points head to head (44-46), he led by two points (39-37) when the question included the third-party candidates.

Both NBC results are within the margin of error, but the key here is the four-point shift toward Biden when you include third-party candidates. That’s something we really haven’t seen before.

And a big reason for the shift is Kennedy. He takes twice as much of his support from voters who had previously picked Trump in the head-to-head question (15 percent of those voters) than those who had picked Biden (7 percent). Biden cedes more votes than Trump to Stein, but Kennedy is a larger factor given that he’s been pulling more votes throughout the race.

(That poll is also merely the latest to show Kennedy’s image among right-leaning voters is vastly superior to his image among left-leaning ones. While Republicans like him 40 percent to 15 percent — a plus-25 split — Democrats dislike him 53-16 — a negative-37 split.)

The Marist poll shows Kennedy pulling only slightly more from actual Republicans (10 percent) than Democrats (8 percent). But it suggests he’s pulling more from Trump-leaning independents.

While Biden and Trump are tied at 49 percent among independents in the head-to-head, Biden leads 34-30 among independents when you include third-party candidates.

As in the NBC poll, Kennedy pulls more from Trump head-to-head voters (17 percent) than Biden voters (11 percent).

While these are perhaps the most compelling recent polls to suggest Kennedy and the broader third-party impact aren’t hurting and could even help Biden, they’re not the only ones:

• A right-leaning pollster last week showed Trump’s lead dropping from four points to two when the third-party candidates were included.
• Other recent polls have basically shown no shift or a slight shift toward Biden, including a Yahoo News/YouGov poll and a Marquette University Law School poll.
• A New York Times/Siena College poll from mid-April didn’t provide Kennedy and the other third-party candidates as an option, but some respondents volunteered them. Who were those people volunteering Kennedy? Three percent of Trump 2020 voters, but less than 1 percent of Biden 2020 voters.

All of it paints a picture of a dynamic situation with the third-party candidates.

Biden has probably suffered more among them in the past because Democrats are less enthusiastic about his candidacy than Republicans are about Trump’s. In addition, both Stein and West are clearly to Biden’s political left, and Kennedy at the very least has a name that could resonate with more casual left-leaning independents.

But what generally happens as a general election proceeds is that voters gravitate toward the two major-party candidates because they actually have a shot at winning, and third-party candidates fade.

Perhaps what we’re starting to see is voters who don’t like Trump migrating from flirting with third-party candidates to going for Biden. Perhaps Kennedy’s far superior image among right-leaning voters or his tendency toward Republican-friendly conspiracy theories is starting to register. Or — though it’s early to say this with any certainty — perhaps Trump’s personal problems surrounding his first criminal trial are starting to have more of an effect.

It’s a battle that is far from over, particularly given that both sides are likely to spend the next six-plus months trying to attach Kennedy to the other side’s politics. Biden appeared last week with members of the Kennedy family who have distanced themselves from their relative’s campaign. And at least some Republicans are starting to worry about the Kennedy impact and fight back, attacking the candidate they once boosted when Kennedy was challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination.

Democrats aren’t about to stop fretting about this, because fretting is one of the things they do best. But if you’re a Democrat right now, things appear to be moving in the right direction.