Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks onstage beside Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in Glendale, Ariz., on Friday. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post)
Analysis by Aaron Blake
But how much impact could it have?
But in some states, it was too late.
That’s three of the seven states generally regarded as being the most important.
It’s doubtful Kennedy will take anywhere close to the approximately 4 or 5 percent he was polling at in such states and nationally. But small margins could matter greatly in Michigan (which Trump won by 0.2 percentage points in 2016) and Wisconsin (which Trump carried by 0.8 points in 2016 and President Joe Biden carried by 0.6 points in 2020).
So, as a hypothetical, if Kennedy goes on to take 1 percent of the vote in these states and his support breaks down like those polls indicate, it would cost Trump between 0.2 percent and 0.3 percent of the vote against Harris.
That’s similar not just to Trump’s margin in Michigan in 2016, but also to Biden’s margins in Arizona (0.3 percent) and Georgia (0.2 percent) in 2020.
Of course, I’ve just pulled that 1 percent figure out of thin air. Who knows what Kennedy will ultimately get and whether it will break down similarly to the rest of his support? Perhaps Trump-inclined Kennedy backers or Harris-inclined ones will be more likely to vote for a withdrawn candidate (whether as a protest vote or because they don’t know he dropped out).
But there is some — albeit limited — precedent for such candidates drawing small but significant vote totals after dropping out. Perhaps the two best recent comparisons:
In the 2014 Connecticut governor’s race, independent Joe Visconti withdrew two days before Election Day and endorsed the Republican. He was polling between 3 and 8 percent — similar to Kennedy — and ultimately took a little more than 1 percent.
A few other recent examples:
In the 2018 Alaska governor’s race, independent Gov. Bill Walker withdrew and endorsed the Democrat. Walker wound up taking 2.03 percent. (He was, though, an incumbent many had voted for before.)
In the 2018 special election for Texas’s 27th Congressional District, Republican Bech Bruun withdrew but still took 4.3 percent in a nonpartisan “jungle” primary.
In the 2022 U.S. Senate race in Alaska, Republican Buzz Kelley took 2.13 percent in the first round of the state’s ranked-choice primary and was one of four candidates to qualify for the general election. But despite soon withdrawing, he actually increased his first-choice votes in the general election, to 2.89 percent. (Ranked-choice voting does encourage votes for minor candidates, by allowing people to also vote for other candidates in case their candidate doesn’t win.)
These last three examples aren’t very comparable, including because the final two were run under unusual voting systems. And a presidential race will earn gobs more attention, which will reduce the possibility that people will go to the polls thinking Kennedy is still actually a candidate.
But some might, and he’ll still be an available protest vote for those who might be inclined to back him. And for a Trump campaign that played up how Kennedy’s exit would be a boon, it complicates things.
