Will RFK Jr help or harm Trump’s campaign?

Sam Hawley: He shares one of the most famous names in US political history. But can he change the course of the next US election? Robert F Kennedy Jr, a nephew of the former President John F Kennedy, is running as an independent and while he won’t win, he could steal crucial votes away from both Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Today Eliza Collins from the Wall Street Journal on Kennedy’s campaign, his extreme views and how he could become a problem for both camps. I’m Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Eliza, Robert F Kennedy Jr, or RFK Jr as we’ll call him, he already had a bit of an advantage when he announced he was running for the presidency last year. The Kennedy name resonates with Americans, of course, but all around the world, doesn’t it?

Eliza Collins: It does. The Kennedy family is the most famous Democratic family in the US. So he absolutely has a name ID advantage in coming into this race. But I think to be really clear, he doesn’t have an advantage in polling. So he entered the race as part of the Democratic primary process here, which meant he was challenging President Biden to be the Democratic nominee.

Robert F Kennedy Jr: I’ve come here today to announce my candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.

Eliza Collins: Pretty quickly, that became clear that he did not have a shot at doing that. And so we ended up switching to a third party or independent bid in the fall.

Robert F Kennedy Jr: I’m here to declare myself an independent candidate. Today, this country is ready for a history making change.

Sam Hawley: Right, so he’s now running as an independent and he’s really trying, it looks like, to use the Kennedy name to give him a lift.

Eliza Collins: He is benefiting from people who know the Kennedy name and he certainly is using that to his advantage in any way he can. There was an ad from a group supporting him that did use a famous jingle from his uncle, so former president or the late President John F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign.

Eliza Collins: And I know that the Kennedy bus that drives around the country sometimes does play Kennedy music, but he’s very different than his Democratic family.

Sam Hawley: Yes, so he’s running as an independent, but he used to be a Democrat. So he would be, I would think, somewhat of a black sheep of the family now.

Eliza Collins: Yes, so we’ve seen a lot of his family members actually very critical of him and his candidacy, saying that he is making it easier for former President Donald Trump to win this election. This is a really tight election here. We saw a large number of the Kennedy family actually come out in a show of support and endorse Biden, including some of RFK Jr.’s siblings.

Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert Kennedy: My name is Kerry Kennedy and I am the seventh child of Robert and Ethel Kennedy. I’m joined here today with my sisters Kathleen and Rory, with Joe and Chris and Max and with my hero, President Joe Biden.

Sam Hawley: All right, well, so let’s delve into what his family is taking issue with then. What are the policies or the platforms that they really don’t like of RFK Jr.?

Eliza Collins: Well, I think on the very basic face, their issue with him is that he could take votes away from Biden. But if you go deeper into Kennedy’s stances and position policies, he’s really all over the map on certain issues. He’s more of a traditional Democrats, especially social issues, gay marriage, support for abortion access. Those are things he is aligned with Democrats on combating climate change. But then he has some views that are certainly out of the mainstream. He has questioned the use of vaccines, especially criticising some vaccines, he says, for causing autism, which is, of course, against what the scientific community says here. He’s really had a lot of conspiracy or questioning of the government and corporations in general, questioning the use of 5G contaminants in water, all sorts of things that are outside of the mainstream. And then he’s aligned with Republicans on other things. So he has called for a more aggressive border control down at the U.S.-Mexico border. He has been critical of some gun control measures here. And so while he does pull some traditional Democratic ideas, a lot of what he talks about and stands for really are outside of what the Democratic Party is calling for.

Robert F Kennedy Jr: My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign and over my throughout my presidency will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening And what we’re fighting now is fighting out from those new kind of corporate feudalism in our country to poison our children and our people with chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs to strip mine our assets, to hollow out the middle class and keep us in a constant state of war.

Sam Hawley: And also, Eliza, he’s been involved in a fair few scandals and he’s had quite a few health problems, too, hasn’t he?

Eliza Collins: Yes. So the big news that just has come out, the New York Times reported that he had said that there was a worm in his brain, presumably a parasite, that caused some damage. And so, of course, part of Kennedy’s argument is that he is running against Biden and Trump, who are both much older candidates. And he’s made this argument that he is young and athletic and fit. And so then to have something like this come out that is saying this is a very serious health problem, if not unusual, or at least the way he’s talking about it, unusual. And so there was certainly a lot of hubbub about that this week.

Sam Hawley: Yeah, sure. OK, he says that a parasite ate part of his brain, which, yeah. OK. And he is 70. But I guess compared to Trump, who’s 77, and Biden, who’s 81, he is relatively young. So he’s playing on that.

Eliza Collins: Right. And he does present, he presents younger than they do, I will say, as someone who’s spent time with all of the candidates. But none of them are very young.

Sam Hawley: No, that’s right. Do we know what else he stands for? I mean, what’s his big pitch?

Eliza Collins: You know, his big pitch is that the country has become too divided. And it is really interesting as someone I’ve spent some time with him on the campaign trail, talked to a lot of his supporters. It’s no secret most Americans do not want a rematch between Trump and Biden. And so Kennedy has really tried to lean into that. But he also talks about income inequality, how hard it is to buy a house here. He pulls from all of these different strings. But his overall message and his pitch is that he is different than the Republicans and the Democrats and that he can unite the country. Now, we should be very clear. He is not polling like someone who is going to win. But in some of these tight states that will decide the election, he could change the results of the race. But right now it’s not clear. He pulls from both Trump and Biden. And depending on the state, he pulls more from one or the other. So they’re both pretty nervous about his candidacy, which is interesting.

Sam Hawley: OK, so he’s running as an independent, but there’s very little prospect that he could actually win. So why is he actually bothering to do it? Is it to splinter that vote, to get votes away from either Trump or Biden?

Eliza Collins: He believes he can win. And we’ve done some reporting on his campaign and the people around him believe he can win, if not outright. They think that basically all of the candidates would fall short of the number of electoral votes you would need to win. And that would then send the election to Congress. And he believes and the people around him believe that Congress would then decide he should be president because he is sort of the unifying figure. Now, that is that’s a stretch. That’s a stretch all the way around. The Wall Street Journal poll of the seven most competitive states in the country had Kennedy pulling 11 percent.

Sam Hawley: But he could take some votes, couldn’t he, from Trump or Biden. Who do you think he’ll hurt the most in that sense?

Eliza Collins: So it’s very confusing here. Kennedy pulls from both. Most polls show that he pulls slightly more Trump supporters than Biden supporters, but not enough to say outright that he is a bigger threat to Trump than Biden. And really, both campaigns, both Trump and Biden’s campaign, have increased their attacks on Kennedy, trying to accuse him of hurting them to help the other. But they are both getting increasingly nervous about him. And I think part of that is just because it’s really not clear which one of them he hurts more.

Sam Hawley: All right. Well, Eliza, there, of course, is a long way to go in political terms before the election in November. So what’s next in RFK Jr.’s campaign?

Eliza Collins: Well, what Kennedy needs to do right now is he needs to get on the ballot in every state. So if you are part of the major parties, a Republican or a Democrat, you automatically, once you’re chosen by your party, you automatically get added to the ballot for that party. If you are a third party independent candidate, that is not the case. You need to follow each state’s rules, which could be signature gathering or other requirements in order to get on the ballot. It’s a very expensive endeavour and it takes a lot of time. So Kennedy has gathered enough signatures to be on several states ballots at this point. Less than half dozen. So he’s got a long way to go to even have any shot in this race because, of course, he needs to be on the ballot everywhere to even really compete. And even if he’s on the ballot everywhere, the chances of him becoming president are quite slim.

Sam Hawley: And as you say, it’s a very costly process. So what do you think, though, Eliza, could this election be so close that RFK Jr. could actually swing it one way or the other?

Eliza Collins: Absolutely, because of a handful of states. So if Kennedy gets on the ballot in all of the states, he could help decide which candidate wins. This election will be decided on in about seven states. So I live in Arizona. It’s one of the most important states in the country. Biden won it by just 10,000 votes. And so if Kennedy pulls votes from one candidate or the other and that changes who wins the state, that could be what decides the election.

Sam Hawley: And tell me, what about the Kennedy family and the Kennedy legacy? Is he seen to be actually harming that in any way?

Eliza Collins: I think people generally think that he is separate from his family. He, for a long time, has been sort of the oddball of the family, especially as he became an increasingly vocal anti-vaccine advocate during the coronavirus pandemic. The Kennedys are a solid Democratic family. And so they were pushing for vaccines and support of what the Biden administration was doing. So I don’t think that people are saying that he is the representative for the Kennedy family. It is actually quite a big family. But the name identification is certainly influencing his race.

Sam Hawley: Eliza Collins is a reporter with The Wall Street Journal covering Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign to become president. This episode was produced by Bridget Fitzgerald and Nell Whitehead with audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I’m Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.