Is an RFK Trump endorsement a game changer in the presidential election?

An endorsement of Donald Trump by independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. would give Trump a small bump in the polls, experts tell The Lion.

But one prominent GOP operative and presidential advisor tells The Lion that beyond the addition and subtraction of polling, the RFK Jr. endorsement could provide “game-changing” algebra in the 2024 presidential race for its ability “to unite the enemies of the Deep State” on the left and the right.

Kennedy, who is polling between 5-10% in national election surveys, has been rumored to be dropping out of the race Friday to throw his support behind Trump, after Democrats succeeded in keeping RFK Jr. off the ballot in New York.

Barring any other historic resets in the presidential race, the pending RFK Jr. endorsement shows that voters have two candidates in Donald Trump and Kamala Harris who stand in more marked contrast than in any election since Lincoln defeated Douglas, Breckinridge and Bell in the 1860 election.

The Lion reached out to four well-known pollsters and conservative operatives to get an analysis of the impact an RFK Jr. endorsement would have on the 2024 presidential race.  

For sure, pollsters on all sides of the race are scrambling now to determine how the latest reset in a presidential race full of historic twists and turns will affect the final vote in November.  

There is, after all, a scarcity of data available for a Trump-RFK Jr. alliance.   

“A Kennedy endorsement for Trump would likely give him a slight bump now, but will it once voting begins?” asks GOP pollster Jim Ellis, president of election analysis company Ellis Insight. “After all, the Democrats are suing to disqualify Kennedy wherever they can, so they obviously believe getting Kennedy out of the race helps Harris.” 

In the most extensive data analysis offered by any pollster, Conor Maguire of award-winning pollster WPA Intelligence tells The Lion that, while the math of an RFK Jr. Endorsement may add up to a “net zero gain, a strong endorsement with the right message could change the math.”  

Maguire says the impact could be especially important for voting at the statewide level.  

“While support for RFK Jr. has dropped in the wake of the Trump assassination attempt and Vice President Kamala Harris’ ascension to the top of the ticket, the 5-to-10% of the vote that will be distributed could have major impacts on a state level,” Maguire explains.  

Polls touted by the media look at nationwide voting, but generally don’t look at the state-by-state vote totals that will decide the election in the Electoral College. 

GOP political consultant and author Dick Morris, who previously worked for President Bill Clinton, argues an RFK Jr. endorsement would break any momentum Harris had coming out of the Democrat National Convention, but agreed the messaging is the most important aspect of the endorsement.  

“But more than [breaking Harris’ momentum], I think it’s a very important strategic initiative, because I’ve always felt that the Deep State has enemies both on the left and on the right, and that Kennedy should make common cause with Trump in going after the Deep State enemies on the left and on the right,” Morris tells The Lion.  

Morris says the bipartisan combination would be important in uniting the country, appealing to a majority of voters who are dissatisfied with the federal government for various reasons.  

Morris cites abuses by the Food and Drug Administration, the dangers posed to the food supply for the over-use of antibiotics, and issues relating to “privacy, wiretapping, government intrusion” that could resonate with RFK Jr.’s base, no matter which party voters prefer.  

“I think that talking about those issues will open access to voters for Trump who otherwise would not consider him,” says Morris.  

Morris also points to still-unresolved questions about the assassination of RFK Jr.’s father, Robert Kennedy Sr., the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee at the time of his murder, and the assassination of RFK Jr.’s uncle, President John F. Kennedy.  

For many Americans, the lingering questions about federal government involvement in those two murders, and its botched investigations of them, started the long, persistent erosion of trust in government.     

“I’m hoping that [Trump and RFK Jr.] make common cause in going after the facts about the two Kennedy assassinations. And I think that nothing else represents the power of the Deep State than those murders,” said Morris.  

Public trust in government peaked in 1964 at 77% in the wake of the first Kennedy assassination in 1963, but has eroded steadily since, with brief moments of confidence restored under Presidents Reagan and Clinton, according to survey data by the Pew Research Center.   

One GOP operative, however, is less confident in the bump for Trump that an RFK Jr. endorsement would bring, calling the GOP nominee “objectively a bad candidate.”  

“Trump should be way ahead. His campaign is terrible,” Keith Naughton, a political operative from swing state Pennsylvania, tells The Lion. “Their messaging is some of the worst I’ve ever seen, because inflation has been the No. 1 issue for over two years, and they’ve only started talking about it in the last couple weeks.” 

Still, Naughton allows that might not matter as much for “the sliver” of Kennedy voters that an RFK Jr. endorsement would bring to Trump.  

“He makes a good point: The Democrats, by their own actions, have proven democracy is great when it works for them [but] when it doesn’t, they don’t like it so much. They canceled multiple primaries. They did everything they could do to prevent Biden from having a serious challenge, and they clearly covered up his decline over the past year, at least.” 

When asked if the 5% of RFK Jr.’s support in the polls would be enough to defeat Harris, who was at 3% support from Democrats when she dropped out of the 2020 Democrat presidential primary in 2019, pollster Ellis says simply, “We’ll just have to see!” 

Morris, for his part, isn’t waiting to pass judgment: 

“I think it really is a game changer, not in the sense that [RFK Jr.] has a mass constituency that will go with him or voters who will switch because of him, but because it opens the door to issues and the view of government and a view of each state that resonates so deeply with so many of the voters who are not in his base, but think like the people that are in his base.”