- Written by Mike Wendling
- BBC News, Royal Oak, Michigan
Mike Panza showed up early at a comedy charity event to support the Kennedy presidential campaign.
Wearing a Star Wars-themed shirt and lining up outside the Royal Oak Theater in this Detroit suburb, he was drawn to RFK Jr., the only candidate in the 2024 election identified only by his initials. I talked about the reason.
“I'd like to get back to the middle,” said Panza, 44. “His stance on health care is really appealing. President Kennedy wants to make people healthy, and he wants to keep the country healthy. “I want to be healthy,” he said.
Mr. Panza, who works as an environmental official, may sound like a disgruntled Democrat. But when asked who he voted for in 2020, he immediately responded, “Trump.”
Interviews with dozens of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. supporters here point to contradictions regarding independent candidates, one of the biggest wildcards in November's presidential election.
Conventional wisdom, supported by some polls, suggests that Kennedy, a member of one of the country's most famous Democratic political families, poses a greater threat to Joe Biden than Republican candidate Donald Trump. It is said to become.
But other recent polls, interviews with supporters, and a closer look at the issues that animate Kennedy's base tell a different story – perhaps Trump is the candidate to worry about more. I'm saying that.
“Given the current political climate in Michigan, Trump will probably do more damage,” said Corwin Smit, a political science professor at Michigan State University. “But it's a very uncertain situation.”
Kennedy consistently maintains approval ratings in the teens or low single digits. By all accounts, he is the most popular independent or third-party candidate in decades.
Experts say support for third-party candidates tends to decline as elections approach, making it highly unlikely that Kennedy will win the White House. But the race is so close that his significant support could influence the outcome of some states, including the key battleground state of Michigan, and ultimately decide who the next president will be. there's a possibility that.
Just a few miles from the comedy show, in suburban Macomb County, local Republicans hold pro-Trump rallies every Sunday at a wide intersection surrounded by strip malls, fast food restaurants and gas stations.
This is a battleground. Trump won about 53% of Macomb voters in both 2016 and 2020.
However, in the last election, the share of votes given to third-party candidates decreased, with Joe Biden beating Hillary Clinton by about 3.5 percentage points. It was a small piece that allowed Biden to swing Michigan back into the Democratic field in 2020.
In a room filled with dozens of Republicans waving American flags and handmade pro-Trump signs, reactions to the Kennedy campaign ranged from laughable bemusement to mild support.
Peter Kiszczych is a regular at these gatherings. He said he was pleased to see independent candidates such as Kennedy Jr. and left-wing Cornel West enter the race.
“Some people on the left will probably vote for them,” said Kiszczyk, 69, who immigrated to Michigan from Poland in the 1980s. “There are things I like about RFK and things I don't like.”
But he deeply agreed with Mr. Kennedy Jr. on one of his most notable and controversial issues. “We all support his position against vaccination,” he said, gesturing to the small crowd of Trump fans.
After a career as an environmental lawyer, Kennedy served as president of the anti-vaccination group Children's Health Defense. Kennedy's popularity has similarly skyrocketed, as has his support and fundraising during the coronavirus pandemic.
His work has put Mr. Kennedy on the opposite side of most Democrats in a cultural and political divide that has formed during the pandemic and has been especially acute in Michigan.
In April 2020, then-President Trump focused his anger on the state's Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who had imposed lockdown measures, tweeting, “Liberate Michigan!” The state has seen numerous protests against Whitmer's coronavirus policies, including a tense armed rally at the state Capitol.
“Many anti-Whitmer voters supported Trump in 2020,” said Smit, a professor at Michigan State University.
He noted that many Michiganders drawn to Kennedy's positions on health care and vaccines tend to be conservative and therefore would more naturally fall into Trump's camp.
“The Democratic Party in Michigan is different than the Democratic Party in California,” he said.
Many Kennedy supporters returned to the theater, paying $99 per person for comedy tickets, but declared their opposition to lockdowns, masks and coronavirus vaccines.
“I think the whole pandemic was handled wrong,” said Sarah White, a 43-year-old mother who opposed school closures and mandatory vaccinations. She said Ms. White described herself as a former Democrat, and that “she voted for Mr. Obama,” but that she voted for Mr. Trump in 2020. Stated.
The evening began with a short campaign video created by the creators of Plandemic, a conspiratorial documentary series about the coronavirus.
The jokes skewed toward issues related to the “Make America Great Again” agenda, including making fun of gender terminology, and “awoke” young people and National Public Radio.
After the comedy, Kennedy said, “People outside tonight are worried that I'm going to take votes away from President Biden and elect President Trump.
“And some of the people I meet every day are worried that I'm trying to take votes away from President Trump and elect President Biden. And they both , I think that's going to be the end of our republic…I think democracy is stronger than that. ”
Mr. Kennedy's “pox in both houses” message resonates with Liz Glass, a 59-year-old self-described recovering Democrat who runs a deli in Boyne City in northwest Michigan. She voted for Biden in 2020, but she won't vote again.
“I'm tired of it,” she said in a phone interview. “Rather than the two major parties having nothing positive to offer, it seems like they just want people to hate the other party.”
But Mr. Kennedy is unlikely to be able to capitalize on the continuing war in Gaza, one of the biggest problems for disaffected Democrats, including Michigan's large Arab-American population. A staunch ally of Israel, he has rejected calls for a ceasefire.
The two main candidates, for obvious reasons, are trying to portray Mr. Kennedy as a natural ally on the other side.
Trump has offered mixed opinions about RFK Jr., calling him “not mine but a crooked political opponent of Joe Biden” on his Truth Social account, and more recently calling him a “Democratic 'plant.'” I'm here.
The interaction between the two was even more complicated than that. Kennedy, a frequent critic of Trump, claims he was approached by an ally to see if he would be interested in becoming Trump's running mate. The Trump campaign strongly denied this claim.
Trump's senior adviser Brian Hughes called Kennedy an “extreme leftist.”
Hughes said in a statement, citing Kennedy's views on taxes, fossil fuels and gun control, that “despite liberal echo chamber dreams, Kennedy is an existential choice for Joe Biden, not Trump.” It's a threat.”
But a recent NBC News poll found that 15% of Trump supporters would vote for Kennedy if presented with his name as a choice, compared with 7% of Biden supporters.
This is a departure from some previous polls that showed Kennedy pulling more support away from Biden.
Democrats remain concerned about that possibility. Local Democratic Party activists protesting outside the fundraiser called him a “spoiler.” And Democrats are mounting a legal challenge to Kennedy's voting efforts. In Michigan, they were wasted, as Kennedy had recently won the vote with the nomination of the small Natural Law Party.
Lavora Barnes, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, criticized the Kennedy campaign in a statement to the BBC. “The choice this November is clear: We must re-elect President Biden, but there is no other choice,” she said.
Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar at the Conservative Institute for Policy Innovation who studies the history of third-party campaigns, said the overall impact of Kennedy's presidential bid is unclear at this point in the campaign. Ta.
But Matthews said his presence in the race could cause a number of surprises, not just in battleground states like Michigan, but also in states that seem relatively safe for either candidate. Stated.
“At the 8-9 percent level (about where he currently stands in the polls), his support could significantly upset the results in many places,” Matthews said.
