'Freaked out' Democrats mobilize to stop RFK Jr. from cutting into Biden
Democrats have adopted a radically different strategy on independent candidates in 2024, waging an expensive open war on the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
WASHINGTON — In fall 2016, a Hillary Clinton staffer stationed in the Upper Midwest got a call from the campaign’s headquarters in Brooklyn telling him to delete a joke he had tweeted about then-Green Party nominee Jill Stein.
The campaign’s policy, in keeping with the standard practice, was to not discuss third-party candidates, whom they viewed as minor nuisances to be ignored — not as adversaries worth combating openly, even in jest.
This year, though, Democrats have adopted a radically different strategy on independent and third-party candidates. They’re waging an open war on the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom they view as mortal threats to President Joe Biden’s re-election.
There are brand new super PACs — plural — devoted to crushing third-party candidates. Democratic National Committee mobile billboards troll Kennedy at events. And party donors are funding legal efforts to try to keep him off the ballot.
Democrats are adopting such a different posture in 2024 partly because of what happened after that fall 2016 phone call: Stein won enough votes in swing states like Michigan to potentially tip the close election to Donald Trump, and Clinton become the second Democrat in less than 20 years to lose the presidency after Green Party nominees won a mere 1% support in key states.
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