Donald Trump’s campaign announced Tuesday that it will add two former Democratic Party activists, Robert F. Kennedy and former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, to its transition team. Both politicians publicly announced their support for the Republican candidate last week. Trump is bringing them on board 70 days before the November 5 election in the hope that both can help in a very close race. Analysts are currently skeptical that the former president’s new allies will have the strength necessary to push him to a decisive victory in the fall.
“I’ve been asked to be part of the transition team to help pick people who will be in government,” Kennedy Jr. told Tucker Carlson on X on Monday. The group is choosing the profiles that will fill some 4,000 federal Cabinet positions, if the Republicans triumph over Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. It is the new assignment for RFK Jr., an environmental lawyer and famous anti-vaccine activist, who abandoned his nonpartisan candidacy for president to join Trump’s campaign.
The team includes the president’s sons, Eric and Don Jr., as well as two of the main donors to the candidacy, the billionaire financier Howard Lutnick, of the Cantor Fitzgerald firm, and Linda McMahon, the co-founder of the wrestling company World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Vice presidential candidate JD Vance also plays a role in the decision.
“Kennedy may represent 1% for Donald Trump. That may be it for Trump in the swing states,” Frank Luntz, a conservative pollster who often works for the Republican Party, said over the weekend. “The reason Kennedy was strong and up to 10 and even 15 points is because he was taking points away from Joe Biden. Biden left and Harris came in, which caused Kennedy’s vote to collapse to 4-5%,” Luntz told the conservative network News Nation.
The survey aggregator of The Washington Post Trump still leads Harris in four of the seven states that will determine the election on November 5. The former president is ahead in North Carolina and Arizona by one point; in Nevada by two points and in Georgia he has the widest lead, by three. The newspaper recalls that the polls underestimated Trump in some decisive territories in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Harris is narrowly ahead in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In all of them by three points or less.
ABC’s FiveThirtyEight estimates that Kennedy, son of former Attorney General Robert Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, will have minimal impact on the Republican campaign. Analysts believe that the lawyer may have some appeal, albeit marginal, among white, male and older voters, a demographic among which Trump is already quite popular. A recent analysis by Morning Express suggests something similar.
The polling aggregator indicates that if Kennedy Jr. is removed from the equation, Kamala Harris is favored in the polls with an additional 1.3%. This comes mainly from potential Asian, black and Hispanic voters. Trump, on the other hand, obtains 1.5% if the third candidate is eliminated and consolidates his support among those over 30 years old and the rural vote. Nicole Shanahan, RFK Jr.’s vice presidential candidate, assured last week that taking votes away from the right was one of the elements they took into consideration when leaving the race.
Kennedy spent 16 months campaigning for the presidency. He first began within the Democratic Party, which shelters the dynasty to which he belongs. The environmental lawyer wanted to challenge Joe Biden for the nomination. After making his calculations, he opted for an independent campaign in which he swore never to join Trump. His ambition was overshadowed by a string of scandals. From accusations of sexual harassment, racist remarks and even a strange episode that occurred in Central Park ten years ago. He also faced dozens of obstacles to having his name appear on the ballot in all 50 states.
More uncertain will be Tulsi Gabbard’s impact on the effort to bring Trump to the White House. The former congresswoman for Hawaii’s second district left the Democratic Party in 2022 by claiming that the institution was controlled by an “elitist faction of war fanatics who are driven by a Wokeism coward”.
Gabbard served in Congress from 2013 to 2021. In 2020, she participated in the primaries for the presidential nomination, but failed to position herself for the Democratic convention. Her departure from the ruling party made her very popular among conservative voices in the United States. Robert F. Kennedy considered her to accompany him on his non-party ticket as a vice presidential candidate. Gabbard told him that she “respectfully declined.” The two will now work together under Donald Trump.
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