With battleground state 2024 polls showing an extremely close race, both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are looking for the edge that will help them over the finish line first on Election Day.
Trump may have found the answer.
After winning the endorsement and support of former third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump is poised to add a majority of his backers, according to a new survey provided to Secrets.
The groups that polled for and backed Kennedy, American Values ’24 and John Zogby Strategies, released a survey that said Trump holds a 22-point lead over Harris among Kennedy’s supporters.
In five of the six battleground states, Kennedy supporters prefer Trump over Harris by 20 points to 39 points.
“This means that the Kennedy Cohort will play a decisive factor in determining the eventual winner of the 2024 presidential election,” said a Kennedy associate.
In August, Kennedy dropped out of the presidential race and said he had no clear path to victory. At the time, some 7% of voters supported his campaign, according to the Pew Research Center.
He then endorsed Trump’s candidacy and has indicated he would accept a key position in a second Trump administration.
When @realDonaldTrump gets me inside the USDA, we're going to give farmers an off-ramp from the current system that destroys soil, makes people sick, and harms family farms.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) October 14, 2024
If you want this to happen as much as I do, PLEASE DONATE TODAY ➡️ https://t.co/YxxGkb2Ulq pic.twitter.com/hm579ZHM9u
In choosing to back Trump, Kennedy rejected his family’s Democratic Party legacy after they spent much of the campaign criticizing him as a gadfly and spoiler. Liberals also mocked Kennedy’s questioning of COVID-19 policies.
“This comprehensive poll shows RFK Jr. continues to play a major role in our political landscape after suspending his one-and-a-half-year tenure in the thick of the political arena,” said Jeremy Zogby, managing partner of John Zogby Strategies.
“Democrat-leaning journalists have asked me how they could pick up a critical mass of his support. I tell them they should start by taking Kennedy more seriously. The DNC may have made a big mistake by not taking him more seriously,” he told Secrets.
In the new John Zogby Strategies survey, 56% of Kennedy’s supporters backed Trump, while Harris won 34%. A third of Kennedy’s backers were “not yet voting for Trump” but would be “open” to supporting him.
While this might not have a big impact nationally, it does in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
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AV24 and John Zogby Strategies provided Secrets with a graphic showing that “bump” of support: