Former President Donald Trump may win Pennsylvania. But a new poll suggests he has a vested interest in keeping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a major player in the presidential race.
Otherwise, it is the Democratic candidate who benefits.
This is the conclusion of a Cygnal poll conducted on August 14 and 15 among 800 potential November voters.
With Kennedy as his candidate, Trump is leading, although well within the poll’s margin of error of +/- 3.41%.
Trump has 44% of the vote, Vice President Kamala Harris 43%.
Kennedy is at 5%, down 4 points over a month, as he continues his classic third-party decline.
If Harris is no longer a candidate, it will be to the vice president’s advantage. She is up slightly, 48% to 47%, with 5% undecided. As for voters who would “definitely” vote for a given candidate, Harris is up 45% to 41% in a two-way battle against the former president.
Independents who might otherwise support Kennedy are increasing Harris’s margin in a two-way race, with 41% of them determined to support her compared to just 28% for Trump – and an overall lead of 49% to 42%.
Kennedy has made headlines for some particularly brazen transactionality, including a conversation with Trump that included discussions of a role in a future Republican administration provided RFK supported the Republican nominee, followed by a failed attempt to talk to Harris about a job if she were elected.
This poll illustrates Trump’s perverse incentive to hope that Kennedy does not lose further influence as a candidate.
The poll also explores another potential misstep by Harris: her widely criticized rejection of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and subsequent selection of his Minnesota counterpart, Tim Walz, as her running mate.
Shapiro is one of two politicians polled here as above average in overall popularity in a group that includes Harris, Trump, President Biden, Sens. Bob Casey and John Fetterman and Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick.
His +22 (56% favorable; 34% unfavorable) puts him light years ahead of Casey, who is at +3, and Harris at -5, who is weighed down by 48% of respondents who view her very unfavorably. Things could be worse for the California Democrat, though. Biden’s approval rating is at a dismal -17, with his disapproval at 57%.
Despite Casey’s slightly positive approval rating, voters still say they’re fed up with him.
“In the Senate race, fewer than four in ten voters believe Casey deserves re-election (37%), while nearly half (47%) say they want a new candidate. A third of voters (33%) say it is time for a new candidate, including a plurality of independents (39%) and even one in five Democrats (19%),” the pollsters note.
But whether McCormick will have the means to capitalize on popular discontent is far from clear, even though Casey fell 8 points short of the overall poll among Democrats. The incumbent leads 46 percent to 42 percent, with 13 percent undecided.
And the independents are ahead despite the concerns of many. In a two-way race, Casey is ahead 46% to 33%, with Casey up 7 points and McCormick down 6 since June.
And when it comes to those who will “definitely” vote for one candidate or the other in this scenario, Casey leads McCormick 31% to 15%. It’s not clear that the Republican will find the crossover voters he needs.
But McCormick and Trump can take solace in the continued unpopularity of Democratic policies: 66 percent of respondents believe the country is on the wrong track, a figure consistent with previous administrations in this survey and including 40 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of independents.
