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 @ISIDEWITHNewsWisconsinDonald TrumpRobert KennedyPennsylvaniaJill Stein2024 PresidentialHarrisDaily DiscussionKamala Harris•••10mos ago

RFK Jr.’s exit pushes the 2024 spoiler effect to the left

The impact of independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspending his presidential campaign Friday and endorsing Donald Trump remains to be seen.

It’s more likely to be a boon to Trump than to Vice President Kamala Harris, given Kennedy was drawing significantly more votes from the right and from would-be Trump supporters. But Kennedy’s share of the vote was at about 5 percent and falling.

Kennedy’s exit leaves three significant names below Trump and Harris on at least some state ballots: Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver and independent Cornel West.

All three come from left-leaning backgrounds. Stein and West are both generally further to the political left than Harris. Oliver’s potential appeal is harder to define, as it often is with Libertarians. But he’s a former Democrat and left-leaning Libertarian who defeated a more right-wing candidate at May’s Libertarian National Convention.

But to the extent these candidates get on the ballot, Stein and West especially, very small numbers could matter. The pivotal states in the last two presidential elections, after all, were decided by less than a point — 0.7 percent in Pennsylvania in 2016, and 0.6 percent in Wisconsin in 2020.

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…12mos12MO

“Throw out everything you thought you knew about this election.”

By Chuck Todd, NBC News:We are getting awfully close to the moment when it might be fair to say, “Throw out everything you thought you knew about this election.”We are now going from a presidential campaign that left the public disinterested and at times disgusted it to a campaign that I could see generating an electorate that might be as interested, if not more so, as in 2008 and 2020, two of the highest-turnout elections in the last 50 years.If the Democrats do end up with a new nominee — and it’s looking more likely by the hour that they will — that, too, is likely to suddenly trigger interest in what the new nominee has to say, which in turn could engage the electorate in a way that the pre-debate version of this campaign just didn’t.But before we get to this campaign reset, the Democrats have to figure out what their ticket looks like and, more important, how quickly they can get their ticket selected and certified by the party.As of this writing, my sources indicate to me that about the only folks who are still trying to rationalize Biden’s staying in this race all share the last name of Biden, with the possible exception of Biden’s longtime chief political strategist, Mike Donilon — who, as the gatekeeper of the data that makes it to the president's desk, is starting to get blame along with Biden and his family for Democrats’ being in this position.

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