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How Will Kennedy's Decision to Drop Out Affect the Race?
On Friday, as expected, Robert Kennedy Jr. dropped out of the race and endorsed Donald Trump on the way out the door. Why did he do this? First, he plunged from 15% in the polls in July to roughly 4% now and he was still dropping. If he actually believed he was going to get 15%, he was smoking something and inhaling it, too. Third parties don't get above 4-5% except under very unusual circumstances—e.g., you are Ross Perot, with a billion dollars you can dump in your campaign. This year there were double haters, but that is a thin reed to cling to. In the end, few people want to waste their vote to make a statement that nobody is going to hear.
We think "weird" has a good shot at winning the "Word of the Year" award. And Kennedy's campaign had more than its share of it. Here are some of the highlights:
- He said a worm ate his brain.
- He denied eating a dog, claiming it was a goat.
- He said he won't take sides on whether the Saudi government knew about 9/11 in advance.
- He apologized to his family for the Super Bowl ad in which he compared himself to his uncle, JFK.
- He blamed a staffer for commenting on an Only Fans creator's post.
- When denied a spot in the debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Kennedy debated himself.
- He admitted he once dumped a dead bear in Central Park.
The last one of these gave rise to people (and cartoonists) mocking him:
Kennedy's brothers and sisters are beyond furious with him. For example, sister Kerry Kennedy said: "Our brother Bobby's decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear." Other comments from his family were just as harsh, if not more so. Jack Schlossberg, JFK's grandson, tweeted: "RFK Jr. is for sale, works for Trump. Bedfellows and loving it."
That brings up the question of: Did Kennedy make a deal with Trump? For example, a cabinet post for an endorsement? If so, Kennedy is even more stupid than we think he is, and that is not easy. Trump would never honor such a promise. He doesn't want any loose cannons in his cabinet. He wants only 100% guaranteed loyalists. Kennedy is not a loyalist. In fact, lest we forget, Kennedy tweeted out a long anti-Trump screed exactly 3 months ago, which concluded like this:
Trump appointed the worst neocons to the highest positions of power in his administration: John Bolton, HR McMaster, and Robert O'Brien. Now, Lindsey Graham is one of his top advisors and likely to be his Secretary of State.
President Trump bombed Syria, killed an Iranian general, and failed to fulfill his promise of ending the war in Afghanistan.
President Trump invented lockdowns. He shut down millions of small businesses and facilitated the greatest wealth transfer to billionaires in this country's history.
President Trump did nothing to solve the opioid crisis. It got far worse under his tenure while his appointees running HHS were in the pocket of big pharma.
If you think a second Trump term would be any different, you are engaging in wishful thinking.
Kennedy is an opportunist, and a stupid one at that if he believes Trump will honor any deal they made. Kennedy's only slim hope is something like an ambassadorship to Lower Slobbovia.
Oh, and there's also this. Another person who is absolutely and totally against Kennedy's endorsement of Trump is actress Cheryl Hines, who just happens to have been married to Kennedy for the past 10 years. Are we now in a Lysistrata-type situation, or worse? She is taking quite a lot of abuse online, and there are rumors of an impending divorce. The ironic thing is that if Kennedy had challenged Joe Biden in the Democratic primary on a platform cloned from his father's 1968 run, he might just have gotten the nomination and won the presidency.
The €56,960 question [(V) is writing this post] is: What effect will Kennedy's withdrawal have on the race? The New York Times' Ruth Igielnik wrote an article precisely about this. Igielnik's primary job at the Times is managing the Siena College polling the paper sponsors. She makes up the questions and analyzes the results. She has 17 years' experience in survey research, including 10 years at the Pew Research Center.
She noted that some polls show Kennedy helping Trump but others show him helping Harris. In the recent Siena polls, if all the Kennedy supporters who self-identified as Republicans vote for Trump, that will net Trump maybe 1 point. On the other hand, Larry Sabato said: "Few people will vote for another candidate just because their candidate drops out and endorses someone else." Remember, people who support protest candidates do so because they detest the major party candidates. Will their candidate dropping out suddenly make either of the major party candidates acceptable? There is another option for Kennedy's supporters: Don't vote. There is also evidence that Kennedy's supporters were marginal voters to begin with and got interested in voting only due to an independent candidate becoming available.
FiveThirtyEight crunched its numbers to see what the Kennedy effect might be. They see that when Kennedy is not in the mix, Harris gains 1.3 points and Trump gains 1.5 points. This suggests that Kennedy's departure will cost Harris a net 0.2 points.
FiveThirtyEight also looked at the crosstabs. Below is Harris' margin over Trump with various demographic groups with Kennedy in the race and without Kennedy in the race as measured by recent polls. This chart does not take into account the possibility that some Kennedy voters may decide to sit this one out:
With seven demographics, Kennedy's departure helps Harris. The biggest gains are among Asian Americans who supported Kennedy, but without him support the Asian-American Harris. Trump's biggest gains without Kennedy are among voters 30-44.
Another political analyst who has weighed in on RFK Jr.'s departure is Ronald Brownstein. In this video he notes that Kennedy's "brand" is being an antivaxxer. Forty percent of Republicans now say that parents should be allowed to send their unvaccinated children to public schools even if it endangers other children. However, 70% of all Americans disagree. Brownstein thinks that among college-educated suburban moms, at least 90% disagree with the Republicans on this, and something that affects the health of their kids is going to be front and center for them. He also notes that while some young Black men may like Kennedy for not being a conventional politician, their turnout rate is 49%. In contrast, the turnout rate among college-educated white women is 82%. He also notes that in 2020, Joe Biden didn't hit the ceiling among white women. He got about 60%. Govs. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) and Josh Shapiro (D-PA) got 70% in their elections. Harris has room to grow here.
Brownstein's conclusion is that if Harris now brands Trump as an antivaxxer, whatever she loses with young Black men who don't trust government and vaccine mandates, she more than makes up with among white women, especially college-educated suburban white moms, who very much support vaccine mandates. He thinks that Kennedy's endorsement of Trump could well end up being a net negative by driving more white women to Harris.
It is also worth noting that Kennedy's name will be on the ballot in a few states. Some voters may not be aware that he dropped out and still vote for him. After all, if voting for him was merely a protest against the Democrats and Republicans, then voting for him still registers as a protest. As we know, Nikki Haley continued to get 20% of the votes in the Republican primaries, even after she dropped out. So not running is no barrier to getting votes.
We don't know how this will end (yet), but it sure looks like Kennedy went out not with a bang, but with a whimper. (V)
The Money Keeps Rolling in for Harris
During the Democratic National Convention, Kamala Harris took in another $82 million. She has raised $540 million since she entered the campaign about 5 weeks ago. The hour after Harris' acceptance speech was her best single hour so far; apparently, some people were waiting to see if she would take the gig. If she had said: "Thanks, but I don't want the job," they would have apparently kept their money.
One-third of the contributions during the convention were from first-time donors, who are going to be hit up over and over in September and October. The most common occupations for donors were teachers and nurses. That might be due to Harris' speech emphasizing what she will do for middle-class people. Since the convention started, people have signed up for 200,000 volunteer shifts
Harris is expected to get a boost from the convention, although Robert Kennedy Jr.'s withdrawal could take a bite out of it. It will take at least a week to get a real idea of how much of a boost she gets, and several weeks to see if it lasts. That said, Nate Silver's model now has Harris ahead of Donald Trump 48.8% to 44.8% nationally, or Harris +4.0. The Hill's average has Harris ahead 49.5% to 45.9%, or Harris +3.6. FiveThirtyEight puts it at Harris 47.2% and Trump 43.7%, or Harris +3.6. RealClearPolling has it at Harris 48.4% and Trump 46.9%, or Harris +1.5. The average of these four averages is Harris +3.2. None of these averages reflect the full expected convention bump or Kennedy's endorsement of Trump. (V)
Convention Ratings Beat 2020, but Less than 2008, 2012, and 2016
The numbers are now in. Kamala Harris' acceptance speech was watched by 26.2 million people. Donald Trump's acceptance speech was watched by 25.4 million people, which is less. Here are the numbers per night for the last four presidential years:
So, more people watched both conventions than last time, but viewership is way down compared to 2008, 2012, and 2016. But keep in mind, in 2024, the U.S. population is 346 million, the number of adults ≥18 is about 277 million, and the number of people who voted in 2020 is 158 million. In other words, the percentage of "voters" who watched the RNC is about 16%, ditto the DNC. We are not impressed. Even if we assume the sets of DNC viewers and RNC viewers are disjoint, then two-thirds of the voters ignored both conventions. High civic engagement this is not. (V)
Will Age Become a Campaign Issue?
Donald Trump is 78 and Kamala Harris is 59. Will that age gap become an issue in the campaign? If history is any guide, it will. When Joe Biden was the likely nominee, Donald Trump called him "Sleepy Joe" and "a broken down pile of crap."
Now the tables are turned and Harris and Tim Walz know it. She has told crowds that Trump would "return America to a dark past." She also called his attacks on her race the "same old show." Tim Walz keeps saying Trump is "low energy," "tired," and "needs to get a little rest on weekends." They are not going to let up. The only thing they have to worry about is insulting seniors. One could imagine Democratic ads featuring a fit-looking senior who says: "I'm 78, the same age as Donald Trump. I used to run a big company. Now I play tennis and racquetball vigorously and swim 20 laps every day. Could I do the toughest job in the entire world at my age? No, I couldn't. It requires someone much younger, who has more energy."
Age has factored into a number of recent presidential campaigns. In 2008, John McCain was 72 on Election Day and Barack Obama was 47. Obama once said McCain had "lost his bearings." In another ad he noted that McCain went to Congress in 1982, and noted that things had changed in the intervening 26 years, but McCain hadn't. Obama said McCain didn't know how to use a computer or even send e-mail. When a reporter asked McCain how many houses he owned, he couldn't remember. Oops. That hurt. Obama won.
In 1996, Bill Clinton, then 50, ran against Bob Dole, then 73. Clinton was careful. He liked to say: "I don't think Senator Dole is too old to be president. It's the age of his ideas that I question." But others did Clinton's work for him. Comedian Jay Leno cracked: "Bob Dole's senior aides are urging him to hurry up and make his list of potential choices for vice president. Searching for a vice president doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that Bob Dole has senior aides. How old are they—90, 100? I mean, senior aides?" Dole tried making self-deprecating jokes. He said he would put the 92-year-old Strom Thurmond on the ticket for age balance. It didn't work. The kid (Clinton) won.
Sometimes the age gambit fails, though. In 1988, George H.W. Bush (64) picked the 41-year-old Sen. Dan Quayle as veep to counter the fact that people considered Bush old. Quayle was endlessly mocked as young and dumb. On Saturday Night Live, he was played by a literal child. And in the vice presidential debate, Quayle really blew it. He compared himself to John F. Kennedy. His opponent, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX), then let loose with the most famous line in any vice-presidential debate ever: "I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." Bush and Quayle won, but that was the last election Quayle won and he left politics after he and Bush lost in 1992.
In 1984, the 73-year-old Ronald Reagan ran against the 56-year-old Walter Mondale. When Reagan botched the first debate, he said: "With regard to the age issue and everything, if I had as much makeup on as [Mondale] did, I'd have looked younger, too." In the second debate, he landed a now-famous zinger: "I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience." It worked. Reagan won.
Will age matter this time? If Harris pushes hard, it could. There are miles of footage with Trump garbling his words and producing incoherent word salads. She doesn't have to mention age, just show that Trump has lost his marbles. (V)
How Trump Is Going to Focus on Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania is the mother of all swing states right now. Insiders are saying that Donald Trump's Pennsylvania strategy is to send Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) to the Keystone state and basically tell him to stay there. It makes some sense. The "Alabama" (or "Pennsyltucky") part of Pennsylvania, between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, is culturally like Appalachia, where Vance hails from. Of course, somewhere along the way, he turned into a Yale Law School graduate and Silicon Valley venture capitalist, but he probably won't talk much about that part of his C.V.
The swap of Joe Biden for Kamala Harris made Pennsylvania even more critical for Trump. Harris might be able to survive the loss of Pennsylvania because she appears strong in Arizona and is roughly tied in North Carolina. For Trump, without Pennsylvania, he is in deep doodoo. He is lucky that Harris picked Gov. Tim Walz (DFL-MN) as her sidekick. With Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) on the ticket, Pennsylvania would likely have been out of reach for Trump. Of course, Walz creates problems elsewhere for Trump—for example, attracting votes from veterans in Arizona and elsewhere.
Vance's main job in Pennsylvania will be the get-out-the-vote operation. One thing he will do is encourage Republicans to get an absentee ballot and send it back early to lock in those votes. He will probably mostly roam the western part of the state.
Harris understands this, of course but will also campaign in "Alabama." She knows she can't carry those counties, but if she can lose by 5 points fewer than Biden did in 2020, that could guarantee victory statewide. And of course, she will campaign vigorously in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and the surrounding suburbs.
One thing Trump has to be careful about is putting so much time, energy, and money into Pennsylvania that he neglects the four "southern route" states of Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina, especially since Harris could potentially win any or all of them. They are not slam dunks anymore, as they were when Biden was the likely nominee. Also, Florida and Texas might need some attention, and they won't get it if the Trump campaign focuses too much on Pennsylvania. (V)
Abortion Will Affect More than the Presidential Race
With the country facing so many problems, it is incredible that it may all come down to abortion, but it might. There are abortion initiatives in 10 states now. The most recent state where abortion made the ballot is Nebraska, but with a twist. Instead of one measure, as in all the other states, there will be two dueling initiatives on the Nebraska ballot. One guarantees the right to an abortion and one bans the procedure. So both supporters and opponents have something to vote for and something to vote against. We hope they can keep track of which is which. If both of the measures get >50%, the one with the most votes wins, although it is hard to imagine a majority of Nebraskans simultaneously being for abortion and against abortion. It is worth noting that a pro-abortion initiative passed in neighboring Kansas, which is as red as Nebraska and has similar demographics. Also, the pro-abortion measure may boost turnout in NE-02, which has a PVI of EVEN and its very own electoral vote.
You might not have noticed that there are abortion initiatives in Colorado, Nevada, and New York. And if you did notice, you might have thought: "Who cares?" since abortion is already guaranteed in those states. Actually, the DCCC cares very much and put out a memo explaining why.
Fundamentally, there are 18 House districts where abortion could help the Democrats flip seats or preserve endangered ones. Twelve of the 18 districts are in these three states. Here is the list. It is color-coded according to the party of the incumbent, not the PVI:
| District | Incumbent | PVI |
| AZ-01 | David Schweikert (R) | R+2 |
| AZ-06 | Juan Ciscomani (R) | R+3 |
| CO-03 | OPEN (was Lauren Boebert) | R+7 |
| CO-08 | Yadira Caraveo (D) | EVEN |
| FL-13 | Anna Paulina Luna (R) | R+6 |
| FL-27 | Maria Elvira Salazar (R) | EVEN |
| MT-01 | Ryan Zinke (R) | R+6 |
| NE-02 | Don Bacon (R) | EVEN |
| NV-01 | Dina Titus (D) | D+3 |
| NV-03 | Susie Lee (D) | D+1 |
| NV-04 | Steven Horsford (D) | D+3 |
| NY-01 | Nick LaLota (R) | R+3 |
| NY-03 | Tom Suozzi (D) | D+2 |
| NY-04 | Anthony D'Esposito (R) | D+5 |
| NY-17 | Mike Lawler (R) | D+3 |
| NY-18 | Pat Ryan (D) | D+1 |
| NY-19 | Marc Molinaro (R) | EVEN |
| NY-22 | Brandon Williams (R) | D+1 |
If all the stars align, the Democrats could pick up one seat in Colorado, two in New York, and protect a number of their vulnerable incumbents in all three states. They could also potentially flip up to three seats in Arizona, two in Florida, one in Montana, and one in Nebraska, all of which have abortion on the ballot. In addition, there are three swing districts in Orange County, CA, where Democrats are either defending an incumbent or challenging one, namely CA-45 (Michelle Steel, R, D+2), CA-47 (OPEN, D, D+3), and CA-49 (Mike Levin, D, D+3). So abortion initiatives could affect which party controls the House, as well as who wins the presidency. (V)
Republican Judges Are Hanging in There
It is well understood that no Supreme Court justice will retire anymore unless the current president is from the same party as the one who appointed him or her and the Senate is controlled by that party. Justice Clarence Thomas is 76 and would love to drive around the country in his quarter-million dollar luxurious custom bus and will probably be out of there in June 2025 if Donald Trump wins. If Kamala Harris wins, he will hang in there for another 4 years and if she is reelected, will likely die with his robe on. Unless he gets an illness so severe that he can't get out of bed, he is not going anywhere while a Democrat is president. To a slightly lesser extent, the same holds for Justice Samuel Alito (74). There is also Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is 70 and has severe diabetes. She is betting that Harris will win or, if not, that she (Sotomayor) can outlive Father Time, just as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg did.
What is far less-well understood is that lower-court judges play the same game due to a bug in the Constitution. It says that all federal judges serve for life during good behavior. In retrospect, the Constitution should have said that they serve until they reach whatever retirement age Congress establishes by law. Ronald Reagan appointee Judge Pauline Newman is 97 and until recently was still hearing cases on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, even though her colleagues think she has long passed her use-by date. She's now been sanctioned by her fellow judges, but they have no way to get rid of her. She's not the only one who won't go gentle into that good night. The average age of a federal judge is now 69, up from about 50 in Thomas Jefferson's day and 57 in Abraham Lincoln's day.
Any U.S. district or appeals court judge who reaches 65 and has 15 years of service can choose to retire at full pay for life or take senior status. Senior status means a (greatly) reduced case load but still full pay. Taking senior status is voluntary. No judge can be forced to take it.
Currently there are 870 active federal judges on the Supreme Court, the 13 appeals courts, and the 94 district courts. Of those, 70 district judges and 34 appeals judges are eligible to retire or take senior status, but are not doing so, even though they get full pay for life if they do. Fourteen judges who are older than Joe Biden still have a full case load. This chart shows the 104 retirement-eligible judges by year of birth and party of the appointing president:
Of the 104 judges who could retire, 26 are Democratic appointees and 78 are Republican appointees (three times as many). What are the large group of Republican appointees waiting for? Guess:
- The return of Halley's comet?
- A text message from God?
- A Bears Super Bowl victory?
- "And the Oscar for Best Actor goes to... Pauly Shore"?
- A Republican president?
The answer is not at the bottom of the page because we don't know, although we have a hunch given the partisan breakdown.
As a consequence of the backlog in retirements, the next president will probably get a fair number of judicial slots to fill—certainly if Trump wins and the Republicans control the Senate. If Harris wins and the Republicans control the Senate, it will get dicier and some elderly Republican judges may risk it, especially if they have really had enough and want to get on with their lives. That is a bit of a gamble because Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) tend to believe that if a president makes a reasonable appointment, the president is entitled to get his or her way. If the Republicans control the Senate and Murkowski and Collins quietly tell Harris that they will vote to confirm any female judge she nominates, she will understand the message.
So far, the judiciary has not been a campaign issue, but it could easily become one. (V)
Nancy Dahlstrom Withdraws from Alaska House Race
The Democrats need to flip four House seats to take charge, so every seat matters. That includes the one in far-off Alaska. In the primary, Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) came in first, followed by Nick Begich (R), Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom (R-AK) and Matthew Salisbury (R). Normally these four would compete in a ranked-choice general election race in November. However, Dahlstrom just dropped out to avoid splitting the vote with Begich. We presume she doesn't understand how ranked-choice voting works. If she stayed in, the more votes the Republicans got, the less likely Peltola would hit 51% and then win outright. In due course, she would have been eliminated anyway, so there was no reason for her to drop out, unless she was playing 3D chess.
In the primary, Peltola got 51% of the total vote. If she gets that in the general election, she wins and there is no second round. If she just misses, the candidate with the fewest votes will be eliminated and those votes redistributed.
It appears that with Dahlstrom out, the fifth-place finisher, John Howe (AIP) will also make the general election ballot. The AIP is the Alaska Independence Party. It wants Alaska to secede from the union and become an independent country. Neither Salisbury nor Howe has raised any money and it doesn't matter in what order they are eliminated. In the end, it will be Peltola vs. Begich. That said, if there is an AIP candidate on the ballot, it could get some libertarian-ish voters to the polls. Those folks might be more likely to put a Republican second than a Democrat. So, Dahlstrom effectively allowing herself to be replaced by a wacky third-party candidate might add a few votes to Begich's total. And when it's gonna be close, every vote counts. Was this her game plan? We don't know and she's not saying. (V)
No Polls Today
No new presidential polls were released yesterday, but look at the map. It is now Harris 262, Trump 260, and North Carolina tied at 47% apiece. Imagine that it ends up like this and one of the candidates is ahead by a few hundred votes as the North Carolina absentee ballots trickle in. Welcome to Florida 2000. SCOTUS could get to decide another election. (V)
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