Crashing the party
Will RFK Jr.’s long-shot candidacy draw enough votes to doom Biden?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “doesn’t have a chance of getting elected” president, said Paul du Quenoy in the New York Post—but if Kennedy gets on enough state ballots, “neither does Joe Biden.” Democrats were already alarmed by polls showing Kennedy’s thirdparty candidacy averaging about 10 percent support, and stealing more votes from Biden than from Donald Trump. But the running mate Kennedy chose last week—Nicole Shanahan, 38, a Silicon Valley lawyer and tech entrepreneur—likely spells “doom” for Biden’s re-election. Shanahan is rich—really rich. Her divorce from Google co-founder Sergey Brin left her with an undisclosed portion of his $132 billion fortune. She bankrolled that “cringe” ad for RFK Jr. in the Super Bowl that likened him to his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, and can now spend whatever it takes to “smooth her ticket’s path” onto the ballot in every state. A lifelong Democrat, Shanahan grew up poor as the child of a Chinese immigrant and has supported “radical left” policies such as defunding the police. She’s sure to leach progressive support from Biden. Some Democrats had entertained the “fantasy” that Kennedy might woo more voters away from Trump, said Paul Begala in CNN.com. But by putting Shanahan on the ticket, RFK Jr. has left no doubt his campaign is “a heat-seeking missile aimed at Biden.”
Actually, Kennedy is “a dagger pointed at the heart of MAGA,” said Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark. With her fixation on “vaccine safety” and claims that corporations and elites “are hiding important secrets” about chemicals and processed foods, the young and attractive Shanahan will most appeal to “right-wing anti-establishment types” and “wannabe tech bros” who think “Joe Rogan is brilliant.” These folks were never casting ballots for Biden. If they have no more appealing alternative, they could provide “Trump’s margin of victory”—but now, in Kennedy-Shanahan, they have one.
“Both parties are worried” about Kennedy, said Alex Shephard in The New Republic, whose impact on a tight race is hard to predict. Democrats have assigned a team of political operatives to take him down by calling attention to “his many loony positions,” which include his disproven belief that vaccines cause autism and other major health problems. RFK Jr. also says 5G cellular technology is being used for mass surveillance, that antidepressants cause school shootings, and that Wi-Fi causes cancer and “leaky brain.” His support could easily shrink as people learn about his “actual positions.” Kennedy is also more “intensely pro-Israel” than even Biden, said Ed Kilgore in New York magazine, and he’s blamed Hamas for Palestinian deaths. That makes it unlikely he’ll become “2024’s pied piper of progressive youth.”
Kennedy’s campaign may “feel like a joke,” said John Hendrickson in The Atlantic, but he doesn’t need to “win a single state to tip the election.” If he siphons a few thousand votes away from Biden in key swing states—as Jill Stein did from Hillary Clinton in 2016, as Ralph Nader did from Al Gore in 2000—Trump will make a triumphant return to the White House. Clearly, many voters “are deeply dissatisfied” with a choice between Biden and Trump, said Lee Drutman in CNN.com. That makes Kennedy’s “eccentric, antisystem populism” a wild card. With Shanahan’s money funding him through November, Kennedy will be a “chaos factor”—in an election that already promises to have plenty of chaos.