Has RFK Jr.'s Moment Passed?

The Run-Up

The New York Times

News Commentary, Politics, News

4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 August 2024

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For much of the 2024 presidential election, it felt like there were pretty ideal conditions for a third-party candidate. Republicans and Democrats had both lined up behind broadly unpopular — and familiar — candidates. In the spring, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was polling at 10 percent in The New York Times/Siena College survey of battleground states, and sustained interest in his candidacy was enough to raise alarm among his major-party rivals. As that alarm grew, the Run-Up team traveled to Royal Oak, Mich., for a Kennedy campaign event to ask people how they were thinking about a third-party vote when the stakes for that decision were so high. Since that visit, a lot has changed in the race. There’s a new name on top of the Democratic ticket. And a lot has changed in Mr. Kennedy’s campaign, too. But third-party interest among voters who are sick of the system or wary of both parties remains. On today’s show: what made RFK Jr. such a threatening spoiler — and how the RFK-curious in a crucial state are thinking about the race now.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I see it.
0:05.0	it.
0:08.0	Back in April, my colleague Anna and I drove up to quite the scene on an otherwise normal afternoon in Royal Oak, Michigan, just outside Detroit.
0:18.0	There's definitely protesters. There's a guy holding up a sign.
0:22.0	Oh, Lord. There's a guy holding up a sign.
0:22.6	Oh lord.
0:23.6	Yeah.
0:24.6	There were hundreds of people waiting in line to get into an event.
0:29.8	And a handful of other people dressed in full clown costumes, honking horns at the crowd.
0:37.0	The signs to say, it's not funny as someone is dressed in a clown costume.
0:43.0	Another sign says,
0:45.0	Michigan is on board for Biden Harris.
0:49.0	We always put ourselves in the messiest situation possible,
0:52.0	you know. Like, literally it would be like a
0:55.0	straight line and in the most like zigzaggy mess we're like we're doing that one.
1:00.0	And that's how you end up at the Royal Oak Music Theater on a Sunday evening for a night of laughter with presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and friends.
1:10.0	Let's do it. Okay.
1:24.2	For much of this election cycle, it felt like if there was ever a time for a third party candidate to emerge on the national stage. It was now.
1:26.2	Both Democrats and Republicans
1:28.2	had lined up behind unpopular, familiar choices.
1:32.0	Frustration with the two-party system felt at an all-time high.
1:36.4	And people like RFK Jr. were polling at more than 20% in some states,
	...

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