Poll Watching (Week 1)

Discarding Polls - Not Even Once

Introduction

Welcome to Poll Watching, a weekly series exclusively for paid subscribers where I round up a handful of polls, break them down and discuss why they matter. Polls have become greatly controversial in the post-Trump era, but they are still of great importance and serve as excellent markers for how the nation looks and what we should broadly expect in a given election. This series will look at good polls, bad polls, in-between polls and hope to get to the heart of American society and what people really think about the state of the world.

Bobby Kennedy Jr with backer Eric Clapton - his polling numbers are a worry for those in Trump’s camp.

For my beloved free subscribers, please don’t feel dismayed by this. I will still be posting a new article every week on the state of contemporary American politics, this will also ramp up as November 2024 rapidly approaches. This series exists to justify a paid subscription for this publication and to help subsidise my work analysing and commenting on the wild world of politics we find ourselves trapped in

With this out the way, in the immortal words of Hillary Clinton, lets Pokémon Go to the Polls!

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Bobby Kennedy Jr. - Serious Contender?

The first poll which caught my eye this week was a Marist College poll, which suggests that, if a Presidential election was held today, RFK Jr would receive sixteen(!) percent of the vote.

Marist College poll of the 2024 Presidential election

This is an important poll for a number of reasons, the most significant is its suggestion that, despite the Kennedy name, RFK Jr draws most of his support from Trump voters, and independents would split almost evenly between Trump, Biden and Kennedy. In a heads up race between Biden and Trump, Marist had Biden eking out just a three point lead over the former President, but this over doubles to seven points when Kennedy is factored in. Compared to a few months ago, this is a big shift as Kennedy was polling double digits in the Democratic primary and general election polling suggested he would draw the vast majority of his support from either Democrats or independents. It appears that RFK Jr’s rhetoric on issues such as abortion, taxation, and opposition to vaccination have tarnished his image in the view of liberal voters - who may have remembered him from his previous environmental work, or simply backed the Kennedy surname.