I sincerely hope Biden's campaign uses the incredible targeting capabilities of Google and Meta to indundate anti-vaxxers with messages about Trump's plan to let pharma companies do what they wanted by waiving excessive FDA restrictions and fast-tracking approvals. (This is what they'll hate the most but also totally Trump's best policy decision.)
I'm convinced he hurts Trump more, but also, it probably won't matter. He's not going to be on the ballot in most states. Where he is on the ballot, he'll be at 1% or less. Maybe hits one point something in his best states. Which means a fraction of 1% nationwide. And when you're down in that ballpark, there's very little spoiler effect because those are mostly habitual third party protest voters who would have otherwise voted for the Libertarian or the Green or whatever other crank is on the ballot. Most were never gettable by either Trump or Biden.
He gets media coverage wildly out of proportion to how many votes he'll get in the end. Between his dismal ballot access, and the usual third-party fade, and how those two will reenforce each other, he's going to be a negligible factor. And while it's possible we get a 2000 scenario where it comes down to a few hundred votes in a single state, yeah he might make that difference, but at that point so would a million other contingent factors including the weather on election day.
Suppose you're the Biden campaign and want to convince Republican voters to support RFK. What could be more effective than publicly attacking RFK and demonizing him? Negative partisanship is very important and one thing that would make Republicans feel better about voting for RFK is a sense he's hated by Biden.
If I were a Trump guy I’d put millions into ads in Michigan about how the two parties are the same on Gaza so you should vote West to tell Genocide Joe what you think of him
I've watched hours and hours of podcasts with RFKjr and he does not worry me. He's smart, has a firm grasp of history and a great record of environmentalism - not just talking about it, or worse keyboard warrior-ing about it, but actually doing something. As a Democrat, I'm at peace voting for him. I could never vote for Biden. He listens to insane Progressives who are the minority of the party, but who have him firmly in their hold. And then there's the Kamala Harris problem. I would never want her to be president. Ever.
Josh I love this newsletter, and I have a serious question…what makes RFK a conspiracy wackadoodle? The only thing I could find beyond the pale was the weird stuff about racial targeting of Covid. Very bizarre to be sure, but other views pilloried as conspiracies to me seem perhaps unusual but not any more insane than far left views on gender ideology or the purpose of national borders, or any number of right wing election conspiracies, to name a few. So, can you help this RFK curious person come to his senses?
Who should single-issue voters opposed to the "pandemonium" vote for? The guy who put Fauci in charge or the other guy who put Fauci in charge? I was hoping for a No Labels option but lacking that RFK gets a look. The "vaccine issue" is no longer some 3rd rail after public health burned their credibility with mandates and lies about the mRNA shots that don't prevent transmission and that 80+% of the country has chosen to not stay current on.
I worry about Kennedy. Just qualified for the ballot in Michigan, a vulnerability for Biden right now. Though I can see him taking from both parties.
I think a key question will be this: Does the amount of Republicans who cross over for Biden or don’t vote because of their dislike for Trump outweigh protest votes against Biden from the Left and whatever votes Kennedy takes away. Hope so.
Trump’s lack of sophistication should be a given, but I do appreciate your allergy to assumption there Josh :)
What I think is entirely possible here is that Trump is setting up a situation where he closes the popular vote gap by a lot, due to Biden losing the left wing environmentalist vote to RFK, but actually doing worse in the Electoral College than 2020 because said left wing environmentalists are not very efficiently distributed throughout the country. That is, he might pick up 5 percentage points in CA, but end up losing FL because he can’t get his story straight on abortion.
And the thing is, Trump probably thinks this is a good tradeoff. To him, winning the popular vote is more important than actually winning, as we can see by his reaction to that happening in 2016.
I sincerely hope Biden's campaign uses the incredible targeting capabilities of Google and Meta to indundate anti-vaxxers with messages about Trump's plan to let pharma companies do what they wanted by waiving excessive FDA restrictions and fast-tracking approvals. (This is what they'll hate the most but also totally Trump's best policy decision.)
I'm convinced he hurts Trump more, but also, it probably won't matter. He's not going to be on the ballot in most states. Where he is on the ballot, he'll be at 1% or less. Maybe hits one point something in his best states. Which means a fraction of 1% nationwide. And when you're down in that ballpark, there's very little spoiler effect because those are mostly habitual third party protest voters who would have otherwise voted for the Libertarian or the Green or whatever other crank is on the ballot. Most were never gettable by either Trump or Biden.
He gets media coverage wildly out of proportion to how many votes he'll get in the end. Between his dismal ballot access, and the usual third-party fade, and how those two will reenforce each other, he's going to be a negligible factor. And while it's possible we get a 2000 scenario where it comes down to a few hundred votes in a single state, yeah he might make that difference, but at that point so would a million other contingent factors including the weather on election day.
Suppose you're the Biden campaign and want to convince Republican voters to support RFK. What could be more effective than publicly attacking RFK and demonizing him? Negative partisanship is very important and one thing that would make Republicans feel better about voting for RFK is a sense he's hated by Biden.
If I were a Trump guy I’d put millions into ads in Michigan about how the two parties are the same on Gaza so you should vote West to tell Genocide Joe what you think of him
I've watched hours and hours of podcasts with RFKjr and he does not worry me. He's smart, has a firm grasp of history and a great record of environmentalism - not just talking about it, or worse keyboard warrior-ing about it, but actually doing something. As a Democrat, I'm at peace voting for him. I could never vote for Biden. He listens to insane Progressives who are the minority of the party, but who have him firmly in their hold. And then there's the Kamala Harris problem. I would never want her to be president. Ever.
Josh I love this newsletter, and I have a serious question…what makes RFK a conspiracy wackadoodle? The only thing I could find beyond the pale was the weird stuff about racial targeting of Covid. Very bizarre to be sure, but other views pilloried as conspiracies to me seem perhaps unusual but not any more insane than far left views on gender ideology or the purpose of national borders, or any number of right wing election conspiracies, to name a few. So, can you help this RFK curious person come to his senses?
Who should single-issue voters opposed to the "pandemonium" vote for? The guy who put Fauci in charge or the other guy who put Fauci in charge? I was hoping for a No Labels option but lacking that RFK gets a look. The "vaccine issue" is no longer some 3rd rail after public health burned their credibility with mandates and lies about the mRNA shots that don't prevent transmission and that 80+% of the country has chosen to not stay current on.
I worry about Kennedy. Just qualified for the ballot in Michigan, a vulnerability for Biden right now. Though I can see him taking from both parties.
I think a key question will be this: Does the amount of Republicans who cross over for Biden or don’t vote because of their dislike for Trump outweigh protest votes against Biden from the Left and whatever votes Kennedy takes away. Hope so.
Trump’s lack of sophistication should be a given, but I do appreciate your allergy to assumption there Josh :)
What I think is entirely possible here is that Trump is setting up a situation where he closes the popular vote gap by a lot, due to Biden losing the left wing environmentalist vote to RFK, but actually doing worse in the Electoral College than 2020 because said left wing environmentalists are not very efficiently distributed throughout the country. That is, he might pick up 5 percentage points in CA, but end up losing FL because he can’t get his story straight on abortion.
And the thing is, Trump probably thinks this is a good tradeoff. To him, winning the popular vote is more important than actually winning, as we can see by his reaction to that happening in 2016.
In the end, I don’t see Kennedy having that much pull in the election. He’s too much of an oddball.