Dem
48
Ties
1
GOP
51
It's September now. And do you know what that means? States need to print their ballots for early voters. That means deadlines for getting on and getting off ballots are zipping by. In Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, those deadlines have passed already. So if you were planning to run for president and want to get on those ballots, you are out of luck. Sorry. Also, if you are already on them and want to get off them, sorry.
For most people, those deadlines don't mean a lot. But for two people they mean a lot: Robert Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump. Kennedy almost certainly entered the race with the intention of pulling votes from Joe Biden in order to help Donald Trump. That might have worked, except that when Biden dropped out, all the Democrats who supported Kennedy because they thought Biden was too old jumped ship and supported Kamala Harris. That meant that Kennedy's remaining supporters were actually Republicans who didn't like Trump's style. Recent polls showed that Kennedy was hurting Trump, so he tried to drop out to avoid hurting Trump.
Unfortunately, the deadline for dropping out passed before Kennedy dropped out and now his name will appear on the ballot in Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, three big swing states. The ballots have already been sent to the printer, so even if Kennedy makes the ultimate sacrifice to help Trump (committing harakiri), he will still appear on the ballots there. He is going to ask the courts to get him off, but there is hardly any time left.
Will people vote for Kennedy in those states? We expect some people will. There are three cases to consider. First some low-information voters may not know that Kennedy dropped out and Kennedy voters tend to be low-information voters. They will merrily vote for him because they are antivaxxers or otherwise like him. Second, some voters may know he dropped out but want to register a protest and they don't like any of the other minor candidates. Third, there may be some voters who basically combine cases one and two. Like most presidential candidates, Kennedy's campaign is officially suspended, not ended. And he has encouraged people in non-competitive states to vote for him to show their opposition to vaccines or whatever. Protest voters who don't know their home states are swing states might vote for Kennedy, misunderstanding his instructions.
There actually is some data on this kind of situation. In the 2022 Senate race in Alaska, Republican Buzz Kelley got 2.13% in the nonpartisan primary and was one of the four candidates who qualified for the November election. He later withdrew and nevertheless got 2.89% in November, so there were voters who did not vote for him when he was an actual candidate but voted for him when he wasn't.
In 2020, in the South Carolina Senate race, the Constitution Party nominee, Bill Bledsoe, dropped out and endorsed Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Despite not being in the race, Bledsoe got 1.3% of the vote.
In the 2018 Alaska gubernatorial race, independent Bill Walker withdrew and endorsed the Democrat. Nevertheless, he got 2.03% of the vote. Also in that year, in the special election in TX-27, Republican Bech Bruun withdrew but still got 4.3% in the nonpartisan jungle primary.
In the 2014 gubernatorial race, independent Joe Visconti withdrew 2 days before the election, when he was polling in the range of 3-8% and endorsed the Republican. He got 1% anyway.
In other words, there is quite a bit of data showing that candidates who have withdrawn can get a couple of percent anyway. In 2016, Trump won Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin by 0.23%, 3.66%, and 0.77%, respectively. In 2020, Biden won Michigan by 2.78%, lost North Carolina by 1.34%, and won Wisconsin by 0.63%. If Kennedy costs Trump 1-2% in any of these three states, that could be enough to flip the state to Kamala Harris.
If the Democrats want to engage in a little friendly ratf**king, they could ask some wealthy Democrat to run ads in these states telling people to vote for Kennedy to show their opposition to vaccine mandates. It might well work and nearly all the votes would be coming out of Trump's hide. (V)