Mike Panza showed up early to a comedy benefit to support the Kennedy campaign for president.Wearing a Star Wars-themed shirt and queuing outside the Royal Oak Theatre in this Detroit suburb, he talked about what drew him to the one candidate in the 2024 race identifiable solely by his initials – RFK Jr.”I’d like a return to the middle of the road,” said Mr Panza, 44. “His stance on health care is really appealing. Kennedy wants to make people healthy, he wants to make the country healthy.”Mr Panza, who works as an environmental officer, might sound like a disaffected Democrat. But when I ask who he voted for in 2020, he answers immediately: “Trump.”Interviews with dozens of Robert F Kennedy Jr supporters here point to a paradox about the independent candidate, one of the biggest wildcards in November’s presidential election.
Conventional wisdom, backed up by some opinion polls, says that Mr Kennedy, a member of the country’s most famous – and Democratic – political family, presents more of a threat to Joe Biden than to the Republican nominee Donald Trump.However, other recent surveys, interviews with supporters and a closer look at the issues that animate Mr Kennedy’s base tell a different story – that perhaps Mr Trump is the candidate who should be more worried.”Given the status of politics in Michigan right now, I would say he’s probably more damaging to Trump,” said Corwin Smidt, a politics professor at Michigan State University. “But it’s a very uncertain situation.”Mr Kennedy is consistently polling in the teens or high single digits, percentage-wise. By all indications he is the most popular independent or third-party candidate in decades.
Experts say support for third-party candidates tends to decline closer to the election, and that Mr Kennedy is extremely unlikely to win the White House. Yet, because of the tight electoral map, his significant support has the potential to influence results in some states – including Michigan, a key battleground – and ultimately determine who becomes the next president.
