Here’s the thing: We still have no idea what effect (if any) third-party candidates will have this November.
Thanks to an NBC poll over the weekend, a bunch of pundits are reassessing their assumption that third-party candidates overall, and Robert Kennedy Jr. in particular, will help Donald Trump in November. The NBC poll showed Joe Biden doing better in multi-candidate matchups than just head-to-head against Trump.
Well, maybe and maybe not.
To begin with, CNN’s Ariel Edwards-Levy does an excellent job of explaining the basics, including why it’s just very difficult to get an accurate reading on third-party candidates, and that those candidates strongly tend to fade over the course of the campaign. The truth is, as she says, that Kennedy has an unusual combination of very high name recognition and general ignorance about his long list of crank views on a variety of things. Read, as they used to say, the whole thing.
That still doesn’t explain, however, why the direction of any RFK Jr. effect is still unknown. Semafor’s Dave Weigel is helpful there: “Kennedy is doing almost nothing to appeal to Biden voters except being named ‘Kennedy.’ He's doing a lot to appeal to frustrated anti-Biden voters and conservatives!” That is, so far he’s spending a lot more time campaigning on his anti-vaxx and other conspiratorial thinking than on, say, his policy positions on the environment.
But the thing is that it’s still very early, and most voters aren’t really paying attention yet. Now, granted, it’s likely going to be hard for Kennedy to get much attention at all this fall unless his position in the polls stays above 10% or improves, and that’s not likely in part because, well, he won’t be getting much attention.1
But in a close race very minor third-party candidates can still matter at the margins. And how Kennedy matters will depend on what voters hear about him. It remains in large part in his own hands whether people will hear that he’s a crusading liberal or an anti-vaxx conservative populist. Not entirely in his own hands - the Biden and Trump campaigns will try to portray Kennedy (and other candidates on the ballot) in terms that make them sound like appealing alternatives to their opponent. But those messages will be more effective if they’re reinforced by how Kennedy campaigns.
It’s always a bad idea to rely very much on “how would X affect your vote” type question. We’re all very bad at predicting our own reactions to events. But our answers about eventual support for third party candidates, and Kennedy in particular, are worse because people are essentially being asked to predict the information environment months in advance when a key piece of that depends almost entirely on the whims of and independent candidate.
And that’s sort of the key. Candidates such as Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump are severely constrained by the dominant coalition in their party - even when they themselves lead important party groups. Yes, a skilled president can win more freedom of action, and every president is an important party actor and therefore has some ability to affect the party’s policy agenda and priorities. But it’s just as possible for presidents to get rolled by their own party when they step too far away from other party actors.
Independent candidates, on the other hand - and this includes third “party” candidates in which the party is really just an extension of the candidate’s ego - really can take, and emphasize in their campaigns, whatever positions they want.
They are inherently a lot less predictable than any major party candidate. And so if we don’t know how Kennedy will campaign this fall, when have no idea what voters just tuning in at that point will think of him - and consequently who he’ll help and hurt.
Biden is president; he’ll occupy plenty of media space. Trump…well, he’s Trump, and that’s before we factor in all the legal trouble and perhaps multiple trials. Besides, the structure of the campaign draws plenty of attention to major-party candidates; people may not watch the party conventions or even the debates, but both are big events that serve to remind people of their political ties to one or the other major party.