FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. — The Kennedy for President office was closed Thursday. It opened in May, occupying a stretch of a suburban strip mall between a sandwich shop and a comic book store. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s books (“American Values,” “The Real Anthony Fauci”) and campaign memorabilia were on display in the window, along with volunteer opportunities.
A day after Vice President Kamala Harris’ rally near Detroit, Kennedy’s campaign members simply had no reason to be there.
“I never thought it was a big deal that we had an office,” said Walter Kristy, 69, one of Kennedy’s Michigan organizers who did his campaign work from the house he rented nearby. The campaign could do its work anywhere and was still adjusting to a new Democratic platform. “I watched the rally last night and it sounded pretty good,” Kristy said.
Kennedy’s campaign in Michigan began at a high point in his candidacy and interest in third parties. Three months ago, a majority of voters told pollsters they were unhappy with the Biden-Trump tie. A deal with the Natural Law Party gave Kennedy immediate access to the state’s ballot. Both independent Cornel West and Green Party candidate Jill Stein spoke to Arab-American voters here, urging them to abandon a flagging Biden and cast a protest vote for Gaza.
Then Biden ended his candidacy, Harris took over, and everything changed. Third-party polls have plummeted on the Democratic ticket since the presidential election began. Likewise, voters’ general dissatisfaction with the options has risen, with both Harris and Trump – she since switching candidates, he since a failed assassination attempt – achieving their highest approval ratings of the campaign.
“The biggest factor unique to this election cycle was a deep antipathy toward both candidates, which opened the door to increased third-party voting even during a time of record polarization,” said Lakshya Jain, elections analyst at Split Ticket. “Kamala Harris’ rise appears to have completely changed that dynamic.”
Kennedy’s support has been hit the hardest. Before Biden dropped out, he was at 22 percent in a three-candidate test. After the switch, his poll numbers were in the mid-single digits nationally and in swing states, while a Democratic campaign to remove him from state ballots made gains. On Monday, a New York judge banned Kennedy from state ballots, ruling that he maintained a “sham address” in the state. Kennedy said he would appeal and file a separate lawsuit in federal court to “preempt” challenges to the ballots.
But Kennedy’s campaign benefited from being able to compete against Biden and Trump. “We have 341 million people in this country, and the two political parties have produced two men who have argued about really petty things,” he told Fox News after the Biden-Trump debate in Atlanta. The Democrats’ enthusiasm for their new platform surprised both Republicans and third-party campaigners, although some Kennedy supporters said they had not yet noticed. (“The methodical fraud that goes on in polls is really astonishing,” Kennedy campaign manager Amaryllis Fox Kennedy said in a call with supporters last week.)
“We’ve seen a lot of excitement around her campaign,” said Damian Younger, 38, a Kennedy volunteer in Michigan. “All of a sudden her numbers are going through the roof, which is a little surprising. But we haven’t had any one-on-one conversations with people who say they’re actively supporting Harris.”
Kristy, the Kennedy organizer from Michigan, said some of Biden’s critics are worried about supporting a “senile” president. In the short term, they might at least look at Harris, but Kennedy could win them back.
“I’m still for Kennedy,” he said. Then he joked, “I don’t think there’s anything that could change my mind unless he took a bear cub, brought it to Central Park and pretended it had been hit by a bicycle.”
