Former President Donald Trump appears to be leading the 2024 Republican primary field by 40 and 50 points in most surveys, but he’s got a new rival that his campaign is preparing to “napalm.”
According to the news site Semafor, Trump’s camp is set to take aim at presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as concerns grow that he could take more votes away from the former president should he launch a third-party bid than from Democratic rival Joe Biden.
Late last month, RFK Jr. indicated he would drop out of the Democratic presidential primary because he felt like the national party was rigging the nomination in favor of Biden, the incumbent, and would choose instead to run as a third-party Independent. Semafor noted that according to internal polling within the Trump campaign, RFK Jr.’s indy bid will hurt Trump more than Biden:
Semafor has not independently reviewed the polling. One person close to Trump’s campaign said it showed that Kennedy took more votes from Trump than left-wing independent Cornel West drew from Biden when both were tested.
“It’s single digits, but it’s enough where it counts to make a difference,” the person said, with a second source confirming what the first source revealed.
The data supposedly has made Trump’s allies “anxious,” and as such, they are preparing to release an avalanche of opposition research on RFK Jr.
“We’re gonna be dropping napalm after napalm on his head, reminding the public of his very liberal views, dating back to 2012,” another Trump campaign source told Semafor. “We have a lot of stuff on him.”
“He used to be a fun plaything to hurt Biden, now he is something that could hurt the GOP,” one Trump-aligned operative said.
The news outlet added:
While it’s not clear if it’s related, the Daily Caller published a story today dredging up Kennedy’s comments from two decades ago that “factory meat integrators are more threatening to democracy than Osama bin Laden.” The same story also mentioned his description of the NRA as a “terror group” after the 2018 Parkland shooting.
RFK Jr. has himself suggested he’d be likely to rely on Republican support, saying in a recent podcast interview that he “take[s] more votes from President Trump than” from Biden. A pro-RFK Jr. super PAC produced polling suggesting as much, albeit at the margins and without other third party options included.
Democrats seem largely unconcerned about Kennedy’s campaign, though there is some divide among independent pollsters over how he might affect the race.
“President Trump is leading by wide margins in every single poll — both nationally and statewide — in the primary and general elections,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “The fact is that President Trump will beat Biden because he’s the only person who can supercharge the economy, secure our border, safeguard communities, and put an end to unnecessary wars. Americans want to return to a prosperous nation and there’s only one person who can do that – President Trump.”
According to a text reviewed by Mediaite late last month, the Kennedy campaign is planning to launch “attack ads” against the Democratic National Committee soon to “pave the way” for his announcement, which he plans to make in Philadelphia.
“Bobby feels that the DNC is changing the rules to exclude his candidacy, so an independent run is the only way to go,” a Kennedy campaign insider told the outlet.
Kennedy has apparently been considering the idea of a third-party bid for weeks after the DNC announced they would not schedule any primary debates after RFK Jr. and Maryanne Williamson filed to run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The New York Times reported last month that he met with the chair of the Libertarian Party, “raising the prospect of a departure from the party that decades ago became synonymous with his family name,” Mediaite added.
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