Is an "RFK Jr. Effect" Actually Happening?

An examination of a potential RFK Jr. effect on the 2024 election

RFK Jr. | Tom Williams

There was a video that was circulated on social media this past week that showed the RFK Jr. Campaign’s NY State Director, Rita Palma, saying the “quiet part out loud”, which is that the RFK Jr. campaign’s goal is to prevent Biden from winning.

She explains the strategy as roughly this: in the bluest of blue states, if Kennedy gets on the ballots, he’ll pull votes mostly away from Biden, as opposed to Trump, and therefore lower Biden’s top vote threshold. Then if Republicans all vote for RFK instead of Trump….voila! RFK wins some blue states, thus denying Biden some essential Electoral College votes and Trump wins! (Then she suggests that people should stump for Trump in Pennsylvania and other battleground states….WTF?).

All it will take is a beautiful one-time coalition of a small segment of left-wing and Republican voters. While mathematically theoretically possible, it ain’t going to happen.

Even if it were true that RFK Jr. is predominantly taking votes away from Biden, it will definitely take some extremely effective—but very unrealistic—persuading to get enough Republican voters to vote for him to actually win. There are probably enough older Republican voters that simply “will never vote for a Kennedy” to keep this from happening.

But the origin of this strategy is the underlying assumption that RFK Jr. is predominantly pulling votes from Biden. Let’s examine some of the data, hype, and if or how perception is being warped, and will may continue to be warped, as we approach the upcoming election.

What’s the RFK Jr. Hype all About?

First, let’s note that the hype regarding this particular video is already warping perceptions. The woman speaking on the video is apparently not actually the “NY state director”, as she claimed to be, but a “ballot access consultant” with little to no access or influence over campaign strategy. So right off the bat, we shouldn’t take what she says too seriously. Although, it’s fine if the Biden campaign and the PACs aligned with Biden’s message take it seriously enough to try and quash RFK Jr.’s campaign before it potentially gains momentum, which they are apparently doing. Regardless of the proportion of votes being taken from Biden versus Trump, any votes they can claw back from those potential defectors can only benefit Biden.

But the media is definitely falling into this trap and contributing to the hype and subsequent warping. Falling in line with their anti-Biden tendencies, it seems to be the predominant mainstream media narrative that RFK Jr. will hurt Biden more than he hurts Trump. There are a few reasons for this; Kennedy started his campaign running in the Democratic primary and has a famous Democrat family name. Also, his recent choice of Nicole Shanahan as running mate has some leaning toward that narrative, because she’s a former Democratic donor and has loads of money for funding the campaign, even if their fundraising efforts are anemic.

On the other hand, his most popular stances tend to be right-wing MAGA positions. Perhaps 10-20 years ago, he would be in solid liberal territory with his anti-vaccine and anti-establishment approach. But politics have shifted, and there is perhaps a more energetic following on the right for such sentiments. Rabid anti-vaccination is definitely a MAGA thing now, and they are only so happy to prop up anyone that is promoting such theories. And he seems to be increasingly MAGA in his approaches to Jan 6 and other topics.

In addition, RFK Jr.’s family name might have some effect, but the reality is that his last name hasn’t been prominent in our nation’s political consciousness for at least 50 years. He’s not really the celebrity-type politician that the media would like us to believe.

So, it’s always been a bit confusing to me why anyone automatically assumed that RFK Jr. would affect Biden more than Trump. But, I could be wrong, and it’s worth looking at the numbers that are publicly available to see where things stand, and if we can discern any detectable effect by RFK Jr.

Is There an RFK Jr. Effect?

According to 538’s polling aggregate measures, his favorable-unfavorable rating is essentially even (39.4% fav to 38.9% unfav), with a significant number of respondents saying they don’t have an opinion or haven’t heard of him (22%).

This would indicate that even if you want to believe he is maybe a quasi-celebrity, he’s not exactly a beloved quasi-celebrity. It’s hard to say with confidence that he’s going to build, much less maintain, support in the months leading up to the election, the way a beloved or highly charismatic national figure might be able to do.

Let’s look at his polling numbers in matchups with Biden and Trump. There was polling late in 2023 that did show somewhat surprising strength for RFK Jr., and this was displayed and touted prominently in the media. Quinnipiac ran a poll in late Oct/early Nov that showed that in a 3-way matchup, RFK Jr. pulled 22%. That’s pretty significant, especially for a third-party candidate, and would have a potentially huge impact on the 2024 election.

There was also a New York Times/Sienna College poll that showed 25% of respondents would vote for RFK Jr. Both polls also suggested a very strong showing for RFK Jr. with younger voters, essentially running neck-and-neck with the two top candidates among that sub-group.

But that support for RFK has eroded significantly since then. The same Quinnipiac poll that found 22% support for RFK Jr. in October 2023 has been consistently showing declining support each month thereafter:

Data Source: Quinnipiac general election polls from Nov 2023 through April 2024

The latest poll, which was conducted on 3/21-3/25, shows that RFK Jr. garnered 13%, just above half of his support in Nov 2023. This is quite a drop from 22% in October.

Interestingly, the total support for all third-party candidates diminishes only slightly and actually stays somewhat consistent over this period of time. Here’s a graph that shows the breakdown of RFK Jr. support and the Cornel West/Jill Stein support ¹:

Data Source: Quinnipiac general election polls from Nov 2023 through April 2024

The total third-party support is down from the peak of 25% in November, but has stayed consistently at the 20% level, even as RFK Jr.’s support continually goes lower each month. This shows that there is some appetite for third parties in general, and support for Stein and West have been steadily increasing, albeit slightly, as RFK Jr.’s has been on decline.

This same most recent Quinnipiac poll had Biden beating Trump among registered voters 48%-45% in a binary head-to-head contest, a relatively strong 3-point lead. But this is reversed when adding third-party candidates into the mix, specifically RFK Jr., West, and Stein; Trump takes the lead 39-38 in this case. Biden’s total share was reduced by 10 points, and Trump’s by 7. So, obviously RFK Jr. hurts Biden more than Trump, right? Well, not really.

Since we’re adding in all of the third-party candidates, we’d have to also consider the others’ effects on the poll as well. In this most recent poll, West got 3% and Stein got 4%, for a total of 7%. It can be assumed that since West and Stein are ideologically on the left end of the political spectrum, they are taking votes predominantly from Biden. Therefore, this likely chipped away almost all of the 7 percentage points off of Biden’s binary matchup total of 48%. This would get him to 41%, with another 3 points shaved off due to RFK Jr.

Conversely, Trump’s total went down 7 points, likely mostly as a result of RFK Jr.’s inclusion in this poll, since he’s likely not getting a significant number of people from the West/Stein camps. That’s 7 points down for Trump versus 3 points down for Biden due to RFK Jr.

We see a similar pattern play out in the I&I/TIPP poll that just came out this week that was conducted on 4/3-4/5. Biden led Trump in this poll 43%-40%. When you add in the same third-party candidates, it’s tied at 38%. This is a 5-point drop for Biden, and a 2-point drop for Trump. This must be from the RFK Jr. effect, right? Again, not exactly.

West got 2% in this poll, and Stein got 1%. So that accounts for 3 points of Biden’s total drop of 5 points. The other 2 presumably came from RFK Jr. Trump’s drop likely is not accounted for by West or Stein, and his total point drop was 2, suggesting that the RFK Jr. effect is the same for each candidate.

How about one more? The most recent Emerson College poll, conducted on 4/2-4/3 has Trump in the lead by 2 points in a head-to-head matchup, 51%-49%. When third-party candidates are included, this gets adjusted to a 1-point lead for Trump at 43%-42%, with RFK Jr., West, and Stein getting 8, 1, and 1 respectively. This is an 8-point drop for Trump and a 7-point drop for Biden, and Biden picks up a point on the difference between him and Trump. Again, there is a minimal, if any, RFK Jr. effect here.

An ideal way to truly see the RFK Jr. effect would be to exclude all other third-party candidates and just focus on Biden, Trump, and RFK Jr. and compare the margins from a head-to-head vs. a 3-way race. It’s a bit more challenging to find reputable polls that consistently do this, but they do exist.

I searched all of the polls for the last month listed on the 538 polling aggregate analysis website, and only found 5 instances that included a pure 3-way race comparison with binary head-to-head, and they had very mixed results.

Going from binary to 3-way race, one resulted in a 1-point margin gain for Biden (Spry Strategies, 3/25-3/28), one had a 3-point margin reduction for Biden (HarrisX/Harris, 3/20-3/21), one had a 1-point reduction for Biden (Marist 3/18-3/21), one had equal margins (Redfield and Wilton Strategies, 3/15), and one had a 3-point margin gain for Biden (Ipsos, 3/7-3/13).

Let’s go back to the Nov 2023 Quinnipiac poll, which happened to be a pure 3-way race comparison. Biden led this poll in a head-to-head matchup 47%-46% (of course, the headline was not that Biden was ahead in this poll), a 1-point lead. When RFK Jr. and his 22% support are included, Biden led 39%-36%, a 3-point margin gain for Biden.

Now, let’s flash forward to today (literally; as I’m finishing this piece on Saturday, 4/13, a new poll came out from NY Times/Sienna). This poll has Trump leading Biden 47%-46% in a head-to-head matchup, a one-point lead. Add in RFK Jr., West, and Stein, and the result is 43%-42%, with Trump still in the lead by 1 point, and the same point drop for both Trump and Biden. In this poll, RFK Jr. gets 2%, and West and Stein both get less than .5%. (This poll is interesting in that it is the lowest total for RFK Jr. and other third-party candidates than the others. It’s too early to suggest a definitive trend, but it suggests that as the race further solidifies and the country gets used to that, RFK Jr. and others will garner less and less support. Stay tuned).

Lastly, it’s worth considering the battleground states, as opposed to just the general election national polls, since they will essentially be deciding the presidency. For the sake of brevity, I won’t list all the results, but I can state that they show similar results, with no discernable obvious pattern from RFK Jr. Some of those polls result in a 1- or 2-point reduction in margin for Biden, but much of which can be attributable to West and Stein. Others showed a similarly small gain in margin for Biden. Basically, a wash, very similar to the national polls I just described.

What does all this data tell us? Not much, really. There’s no discernable pattern, conclusion, or trend regarding RFK Jr’s that we can gather from these polls. Essentially, there is simply no RFK Jr. effect at this time.

This is not Intended to prove anything, but just to show what, if any, basis there is to claim RFK Jr. will sway the election one way or the other

Of course, this is not an exact science. Polls have been notoriously wacky lately, and they should not be taken too seriously this early. In fact, they should never be taken too seriously. We’re only going to know how people vote when the Election Day totals are tallied up.

Also, there are potentially many variables involved here. There’s no way to know for sure that all of the Stein/West voters would definitely vote for Biden. In fact, it’s safe to assume that a portion of them will either vote for Trump or not vote at all if their preferred candidates are not on their state’s ballot. And perhaps RFK’s numbers in Oct 2023 would have been a bit lower than 22% if West and Stein had been included in that poll (although he did garner 19% support in the poll subsequent to that poll, which is similar to his 22% result).

I did this examination to see if there’s actually no clear effect that RFK Jr. is having on the election, as many in the media are suggesting. In fact, it can reasonably be concluded that, at this moment in time, based on the public polling data available, there is essentially no net effect RFK Jr. is having on the election.

This can change at any time, and it’s very possible that the campaigns have better, more accurate internal polling data showing otherwise. But as of today, there is no appreciable RFK, Jr. effect in data that is available to the public and media. Therefore, most of the current RFK Jr. hype is basically just a lot of bark, but very little bite.

1. The Nov 2023 poll that had RFK Jr. at 22% did not include any other named third-party candidates.