Independent 2024 presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, Jr. has been wooing away supporters of former President Donald Trump, according to a POLITICO analysis.
“More than 500 of Kennedy’s biggest donors gave to Trump’s 2020 campaign, more than three times the number of donors who gave to Biden in that race,” said the outlet. “And in this cycle, more than 160 donors have given to both Trump and Kennedy, while only a handful have given to both Biden and Kennedy.”
POLITICO used data from campaign finance records to conduct its analysis.
Kennedy, the son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy and husband of Hollywood actress Cheryl Hines, is an environmental lawyer. He announced this April that he would run against President Joe Biden as a Democrat for the 2024 candidate nomination.
Although he’s from a famous family of Democrats and was a member of the party, Kennedy began making news during the COVID-19 pandemic for his criticism of vaccines. That cause was typically more popular among Republicans.
By July, Kennedy’s campaign announced that it had raised more than $6 million. Reports also said his supporters included Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, quarterback Aaron Rodgers, actor Alicia Silverstone, and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as well as Silicon Valley tech moguls.
When Trump announced his own bid to be the GOP candidate months before Kennedy, in November 2022, there were reports that billionaire supporters were backing away from the campaign. This February, Audacy reported that his fundraising was weaker than expected at under $10 million.
However, this figure jumped past $34 million in April following the first of four indictments the former president has faced in 2023. When Trump’s mugshot was released this summer, it caused another fundraising spike.
In August, FiveThirtyEight published an article arguing that Kennedy was running in the wrong primary, citing his appeal to Republicans. In October, he switched from being a Democrat candidate to an independent.
According to POLITICO, Kennedy has raised $10 million from large-dollar donors through Sept. 30, and most came from voters who did not make any federal donations during either the 2016 or 2020 election cycles. More former Republican donors – 2,100 compared to 1,700 Democratic ones – donated to Kennedy, generating nearly $2.1 million compared to $1.4 from former liberal donors.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who has endorsed Trump’s campaign, said that Kennedy has the potential to split off votes from the GOP frontrunner, said POLITICO. FiveThirtyEight noted that Vivek Ramaswamy, another GOP 2024 hopeful, said he would consider running with Kennedy, and POLITICO’s analysis showed that 160 of Kennedy’s donors also donated to Ramaswamy.
However, POLITICO said “people believe Kennedy’s campaign can come close to winning the presidency, and it faces significant challenges — beginning with the task of getting on the ballot in every state without the backing of a party apparatus.”
As of Thursday, FiveThirtyEight polling showed that Trump was still far in the lead compared to other GOP candidates with nearly 60% support from Republican voters. Biden was also in the lead for Democrats, with Marianne Williamson being the only other candidate tracked. Kennedy, Trump and Biden all had approval ratings around 40%.