WASHINGTON — Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has reached 15% or more in three approved national polls. One more, and he will have met one CNN’s benchmarks to qualify for the debate June 27 with Democratic President Joe Biden And presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
But Kennedy cannot be counted on to maintain his current level of support as the November election approaches.
It’s quite common for third-party candidates to look like they have momentum in the polls in the months before the election, only to fall far behind at the ballot box, according to an Associated Press analysis of Gallup data going back to 1980.
That’s not a sign that the polls on Kennedy are currently off. They just aren’t predictors of what will happen in the general election.
Research has shown that people are poor at predicting their future behavior, and that it will take months before voting can take place. And that in a year with two very unpopular candidates a rematch from 2020voters can also use their early support for a third-party candidate to express their frustration with major party choices. Ultimately, voters can support the candidate for whom they think their vote can make a difference, or decide not to vote at all.
The concept of a third party has been popular for a long time.
A poll conducted by Gallup in 1999 found that two-thirds of American adults said they favored a third political party that would field candidates for president, Congress and state offices against Republicans and Democrats. (The AP analysis used Gallup data where available because Gallup has a long history of producing high-quality polls in the United States.)
About 6 in 10 adults in the US have said this Gallup polls since 2013 that the Republican and Democratic parties are “doing such a poor job representing the American people” that a third major party is needed. Gallup’s latest poll shows that much of that enthusiasm comes from independent parties, with 75% saying a third party is needed. About six-in-ten Republicans and just under half of Democrats (46%) say an alternative is necessary.
Marjorie Hershey, professor emeritus at Indiana University’s political science department, said Americans generally like the idea of a third party until details emerge, such as that party’s policies and nominees.
“It is a symbolic concept. Do I want more choices? Yeah right. Everyone always wants more choices, more ice cream choices, more fast food choices,” Hershey said. “But if you start looking into the issues and you talk about it: would it be tacos or burgers, then that’s a completely different choice, right?”
That hypothetical support for third-party candidates often falls away quickly.
The AP analysis looked at polling for every independent and minor party presidential candidate who received at least 3% of the national vote, going back to the 1980 election.
In multiple elections, including the 1980, 1992, and 2016 presidential elections, third-party candidates achieved early vote numbers that far exceeded their final vote share. For example, in polls taken in May and June 1980, between 21% and 24% of registered voters said they would like to see independent candidates John Anderson, a veteran Republican congressman from Illinois, won when he ran for president against Republican Ronald Reagan and Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter. Anderson went on to receive 7% of the vote.
Part of the problem is that early polls often look very different from the actual vote in the general election.
Voters “don’t know what’s going to happen between now and the election,” said Jeffrey Jones, editor-in-chief at Gallup. “There will be things that come out in the campaign that could change the way they think.”
Decades after Anderson, polls showed support for the Libertarian Party candidate during the 2016 presidential campaign Gary Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico, between 5% and 12% in polls of registered voters conducted from May to July. That led some people to predict he could do better than any other candidate in decades. Johnson won about 3% of the vote in that election.
Johnson told the AP that he believes his name should have been included in more polls, even though it was used in surveys to determine his eligibility for debates.
He also claims that independent candidates are struggling to match major party candidates in fundraising.
“It’s money first and foremost. People don’t donate if they don’t think you have a chance of winning,” Johnson said. “I don’t exclude myself from that same equation. Look, am I going to give money to someone I know is going to lose? I’d rather take a vacation to Kauai,” Johnson said in an interview while driving with his family on a trip to Hawaii.
The American electoral system makes it difficult for third parties to thrive. Still, it’s possible to have a significant impact without even coming close to victory.
Billionaire businessman Ross Perot is among the most successful contemporary examples. He won 19% of the vote when he ran for president in 1992. But that was significantly lower than his support in previous polls. In polls taken from May to July of that year, between 30% and 39% of registered voters said they would vote for Perot.
There are already reasons to believe that at least some of Kennedy’s poll numbers could be a mirage. (The Kennedy campaign did not respond to a request for comment.)
a CNN poll conducted last summer When he ran for the Democratic nomination, he found that two in 10 Democrats who would consider supporting him said their support was tied to the Kennedy name or his family ties. Another 17% said they didn’t know enough about him and wanted to know more, while only 12% said this was because of support for his views and policies.
“One variable that is so different from all these other people is the name Kennedy,” said Barbara Perry, an expert in presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “There’s a lot of emotion around him that I would say wasn’t present in the Anderson, Perot, (Ralph) Nader and Johnson cases.”
That is true some evidence that Americans are using their support for Kennedy to express their frustration with Biden and Trump.
Hershey notes that presidential elections can feel abstract to many people until a few weeks before they happen, so it’s good to take early polls with a grain of salt.
Such polls “don’t necessarily reflect actual political issues,” Hershey said. “They reflect general views about life.”