OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon has one name in mind who could become former President Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate.
On an episode of “Bannon’s War Room,” the longtime Trump ally suggested that presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doesn’t likely have any real chance to win the 2024 Democratic primary and that he could join Trump’s ticket to become an “unstoppable force.”
“We stay maniacally focused in the general — particularly as, remember, the firestorm of the lawfare will start next spring with him,” Bannon said, referring to Trump. “If you can walk through that, which you can do — you can walk through that fire … and I think get 55 percent or more of the country.”
Bannon continued: “If somehow it worked out [that] you could get Kennedy as a running mate — and I don’t know, that is far from even technically can happen because of the structure of the Democratic and Republican parties and ballot access and all that — you could get 60 percent or higher in the country and win a massive landslide.”
“Robert RFK Jr. is not going to win the Democratic nomination. The reason is that hard-core Democrats are not going to vote for him,” Bannon began. “If you look at the polling, his voters, that 19 to 20 plus percent, whatever it is right now in the polling, are people that voted for Obama twice looking for a change and many of whom voted for Trump in ’16. What you have is this anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian, populist movement that doesn’t trust the administrative state, doesn’t trust the deep state.”
“Kennedy is running as a Democratic presidential candidate but has gained favor mostly with conservatives. In a recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, Kennedy’s favorability among Republicans continued to be high, with likely GOP voters favoring him by more than a 2-to-1 margin,” The Hill reported.
“Kennedy’s favorability among Democrats, however, was the opposite and continues to drop, according to the poll. Likely Democratic voters had an unfavorable opinion of him, by a more than 2-to-1 margin. His net favorability among Democrats is negative 26 points, which is down from a net negative 15 points one month prior,” the outlet added.
A recent average of polls showed Kennedy with 15 percent of the primary vote against President Biden. That is not an insignificant number.
If even half of that 15 percent were convinced to join Trump supporters and vote for a Trump / Kennedy ticket it would likely mean the end of the Biden presidency.
WATCH:
Steve Bannon wants Trump to pick RFK Jr as a running mate:
“You could get 60 percent or higher in the country.”
pic.twitter.com/28SATtbSxf— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) August 1, 2023
More concerning for Biden, 80 percent of Democrat voters polled want the president to face RFK in a debate that, judging by the majority of President Biden’s speaking engagements, could be disastrous for the president, USA Today reported.
But there is near no chance that the Democrat Party would accommodate such an idea and there is no reason for them to.
“As you know, no incumbent R [Republican] or D [Democrat] have done debates,” Kevin Munoz, a Biden campaign spokesperson, said in an email.
But not debating could also be a mistake for Biden.
“The decision not to debate is ignoring the 82% of women, 84% of union households, 86% of independents, and 90% of young voters who are not only planning to vote in their state’s Democratic primary or caucus next year but also would like to see a series of Democratic primary debates,” of Suffolk’s Political Research Center director, David Paleologos, said.
Another Democrat candidate, Marianne Williamson, said that not debating is another form of voter suppression.
“Candidate suppression is a form of voter suppression, and the party that purports to be the champion of democracy should not be so wary of it in our own house,” she said in an opinion piece for Newsweek.
