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The Democratic cheerleaders in the mainstream media have been saying for months now that people will come to their senses once they know more about RFK. It reminds me of how frequently the same members of the chattering class said the Republicans were going to finally come to their senses in the 2016 primaries and yet Trump continued to win and win and win. At this point, everybody knows what RFK is about. He came on the radar for a lot of people who weren't paying attention with the Super Bowl ad and anybody who wanted to know more has hundreds of interviews they can listen to over the past few years.

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Be aware, GOP courting these votes in AZ too.

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I think the world leader RFKjr is most closely aligned on values is Pope Francis, which I think accounts for a lot of Latino Support

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Please, Please Please Stress MY BODY MY CHOICE!!!!!!!! It will probably turn the Election!!!!!!!

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I noticed a couple of outlier polls appeared in the real clear politics average in the past week. They have Kennedy getting only in the 2 to 3% range compared to many other polls that have him in the 13 to 16% range. I was curious how the numbers could vary so wildly and so took a deep dive into the raw data. Here's what I found.

In an economist/yougov poll, the question asked was if Donald Trump is the Republican nominee and Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee, who would you vote for? So, the question makes it appear that you just have a choice between two. I'm pretty sure choosing a third-party candidate in that instance was a response volunteered by the person being surveyed. The other outlier poll was from Siena/New York Times. In that case, the raw data shows that third-party candidates were not listed as response options and are specifically indicated as having been volunteered by the person being surveyed. In polls where the numbers for RFK are much higher, such as a Quinnipiac poll today that showed a 37/37 tie between Trump and Biden with Kennedy gathering 16%, I'm sure he was specifically listed as an option for a five way race. In that poll, both Jill Stein and Cornell West got 3% each.

The Quinnipiac poll is also notable, because the two-way race between Trump and Biden from the same pollster showed a 46/46 tie. The five way race has 96% of the vote committed, while the two-way race only has 92% of the vote committed. Both Trump and Biden lost 9% each when the other three candidates were factored in. It's always a guessing game to analyze what caused the numbers to refactor in the way that they did. I suspect that Trump lost his entire 9% to Kennedy. He definitely didn't lose any votes to West or Stein. The open question is which voters were unwilling to make a commitment when only Trump and Biden were on the ballot. It's very likely to me that some Kennedy voters as well as some West and Stein voters were unwilling to choose either of the major party candidates.

The Kennedy voters who are so most strongly motivated by their displeasure with the Covid response might be less likely to vote if he was not on the ballot. Similarly, the West and Stein voters who are most strongly motivated by their displeasure with support for Israel might also be less likely to vote if their favored candidate was not on the ballot. There's 4% unaccounted for between the five way race and the two-way race. For the sake of argument, let's say that 2% of those were Kennedy voters and 1% each for West and Stein. That means Biden only lost 5% to Kennedy and 2% to each of West and Stein. Even if it worked out somewhat differently than this, any reasonable way you slice it, Kennedy seems to be hurting Trump more than Biden.

One of the other things that came up in the raw data was how badly Trump is going to be hurt if he is convicted for any of the crimes he has been unreasonably charged with. He could easily lose another 20% of his vote. And I think the people who abandon him are either going to sit out the election or throw their vote to Kennedy. They are definitely not going to vote for West, Stein, or Biden.

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