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A Yahoo News/YouGov poll in mid-September asked an intriguing question: "What feelings come to mind when thinking about the upcoming 2024 presidential election?" There were a number of choices: "excitement," "indifference," "dread," "optimism," "depression," "exhaustion," and others.
Can you guess which feeling was selected most often by the 1,636 respondents? It was "dread." Forty-one percent of those surveyed said the word came to mind when thinking about the election. Next, with 34%, was "exhaustion." Below that was "optimism," with 25%, and "depression," with 21%.
It's fair to say that the 2024 presidential election is not eliciting a lot of positive feelings among voters at the moment. And that is largely because they do not want a choice between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Biden is infirm, clearly too old to serve a second term, and has presided over inflation that devastated many people's finances. Trump is facing dozens of criminal charges and left office under the worst sort of self-created conditions in 2021, with a large percentage of people saying they would never, under any circumstances, vote for him.
There have been many presidential elections in the past when people said they did not like their choice. This time, they really, really don't like their choice, if it ends up being Biden vs. Trump.
That's where a third party comes in.
Last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped his challenge to Biden in the Democratic primaries and announced a run as an independent. Now, early polling of a three-way race is coming in. A new Fox News poll, conducted between Oct. 6 and 9, measured support in a race with Biden, Trump, and Kennedy. It found Biden and Trump tied, with 41% each, and Kennedy with 16%.
Of course, the poll is just a snapshot of this moment. All sorts of things might happen in the months to come. And we know that Kennedy will have to raise money and get on state ballots, neither of which is easy. But still, 16% is a lot. It is easily enough to tilt the race in one direction or another. In other words, if Kennedy were able to hold such a level of support when voting begins, he could be a big factor in deciding who will be the next president.
Look a little deeper inside Kennedy's support. To begin with, there's a gender gap. Thirteen percent of men in the Fox poll support RFK Jr., while 18% of women support him. Along racial lines, 14% of white voters support him, while 16% of black voters and 20% of Hispanic voters do. His support among nonwhite women is 20%.
Politically, RFK Jr. has already made huge inroads into voters who describe themselves as independents. His support among Democrats is 13%. Among Republicans, it's 11%. But among self-described independents, RFK Jr.'s support is 41%. That is big. Ideologically, 12% of people who call themselves liberals support him, and 13% who call themselves conservatives, but 28% of people who call themselves moderates support him.
Kennedy is also raising a lot of money. Recently released figures for the third quarter of 2023 show that Biden led all candidates in fundraising, with $24,785,201, followed closely by Trump, with $24,535,602. Then came Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), with $11,160,604, and then Kennedy, with $8,713,134. That's enough to keep going for a good while, especially with a campaign that is not spending a lot of money.
One more caution. Independent presidential candidates don't win. In 1992, Ross Perot got 19% of the popular vote and did not win a single electoral vote. But they can make a difference in who does win. Yes, everything could, and likely will, change in the next few months. Today's polling is only about today.
But remember the "dread." The feeling that a Biden-Trump choice is a terrible, unacceptable choice will be the driving emotion behind support for an independent presidential bid in 2024. It could be RFK Jr.'s superpower. Whatever happens in the future, at this moment, he has the support, the money, and most of all, the "dread" of the two major-party candidates to keep his campaign going.
(COMMENT, BELOW)