A fierce battle between former President Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is heating up as polls begin to show that the third-party candidate poses just as much of a threat to the former president as they do to President Biden.
“RFK Jr. is a ‘plant’ Democrat, a radical left-wing liberal who was put in place to help crooked Joe Biden, the worst president in American history, win re-election,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial. last week.
“A vote for Junior would essentially be a WASTED PROTEST VOTE, which could lean one way or the other, but would only turn against Democrats if Republicans knew the real story about him,” Trump added.
“When frightened men turn to social media, they risk descending into vitriol, which makes them appear unhinged,” Kennedy responded to Trump in a statement Saturday. publish on social platform. “President Trump’s speech against me is a barely coherent barrage of wild and inaccurate assertions that should be better resolved in the American tradition of the presidential debate.”
For months, the conventional wisdom has been that while Kennedy’s third-party candidacy could be a mess for Trump and Biden, it carries more risk for the Democrat given Kennedy’s last name.
But all the surveys carried out by Decision Desk HQ in recent weeks paint a much more complex picture. While Trump sees his lead over Biden grow at times, Kennedy is also included in the polls, the gap narrowed last week, and at one point Biden and Trump were deadlocked in a three-way race with Kennedy .
Some Trump allies familiar with the former president’s operating style downplayed last week’s attacks, saying they were improvised and not part of a coordinated strategy against Kennedy.
“He’s pretty predictable and tribal in his response to everyone,” a former Trump campaign adviser in a battleground state told The Hill. “I don’t know if we can measure that.”
Still, other Republicans say it’s clear concerns are growing in Trumpland about Kennedy.
“You don’t attack someone you’re not at all concerned about,” said GOP strategist Alex Conant.
“If you look at the type of media that RFK does, you look at his very populist message, his history of embracing conspiracy theories – it’s enough to make Trump World nervous.”
Democrats and Republicans are both “in a race to define Kennedy” because in a close race his supporters could be crucial, Conant said.
Republican strategist Brian Seitchik, a former member of the Trump campaign, said “the real barometer” will be whether Trump steps up his criticism.
“More than just tweets, Truth Socials and things like that, is there going to be a concerted effort to spend against him in key states and to try to bring down the vote share? » said Seitchik.
Democrats are the party most concerned about Kennedy and the environmental lawyer’s own family. audible alarms that he could siphon votes from Biden. More…
