People who are worried that candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will siphon more voters from President Biden than Donald Trump (helping Trump win) will be pleased to know that a new Marist poll shows just the opposite.
When respondents were asked who they'd vote for if it were just Trump and Biden running for president, Biden received 51 percent to Trump's 48 percent.
But Biden's three-point lead grew to five percentage points in Biden's favor when RFK Jr. was added to the mix.
In other words, it looks like the former Democrat-turned-Independent is actually pulling more voters away from ex-president Trump than President Biden. And, being that both Trump and Kennedy cater to the irrational and senseless QAnon crowd, these new numbers make a lot of sense.
From The Washington Post:
…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.
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. …
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). …
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.
Interestingly, even though some have recently suggested Kennedy's candidacy could help Trump win, a Marist poll back in October showed similar results to today's poll — that Biden's lead only grows when Kennedy is included in the race.
