Reuters
Some of RFK Jr’s loyal fans are embracing Trump
By Stephanie Kelly and Jarrett Renshaw
September 27, 20244:04 PM GMT+6Updated 11 hours ago
PHILADELPHIA, Sept 27 (Reuters) – Some supporters of former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who ended his White House bid and endorsed Donald Trump last month, are now backing the Republican.
In a race that is expected to be won by narrow margins in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris are fighting over a thin slice of undecided voters.
That makes Kennedy’s endorsement potentially significant, as he left the race in late August with around 4% support.
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Harris has surged in polls since becoming the Democratic Party candidate in late July and she has a lead in the most recent Reuters/Ipsos national poll, released on Tuesday.
However, some polls show Trump has in recent weeks won over more of Kennedy’s supporters than Harris.
Kennedy’s spokespeople and the Harris campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters interviewed 11 Kennedy supporters, five of them from battleground states, after he dropped out and joined Trump’s transition team.
Six of them said they will now vote for Trump and one is leaning toward voting for Trump. One said they will vote for Trump if Kennedy is not an option on their state ballot. One is deciding between voting for Trump or Kennedy, and one is deciding between voting for Trump or Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Only one of the 11 plans to vote for Harris.
Matthew McCloskey, a 26-year-old wellness adviser in Holland, Michigan, supported Stein in the 2016 election and wrote in Andrew Yang in 2020. He was backing Kennedy this year and now will vote for Trump.‘I think we have a common view that the war in Ukraine has to be stopped and Putin can’t win.’00:1802:15
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“I’ve been shoved along with many anti-war, anti-corruption Democrats right out of my own party,” McCloskey said, pointing to broad conflicts the U.S. is engaged in.
He said Trump’s addition of Kennedy to his transition team and potentially to a new administration shows that Trump is “serious about actually challenging this corporate capture of our government agencies.”
While Reuters’ survey was not statistically significant, broader polling also shows that Trump may have the advantage in courting Kennedy supporters in states where the race is tightest.
In Michigan, Trump received a 2%-3% bump in support from Kennedy’s endorsement, helping him lead Harris by one percentage point in the state, according to research from EPIC-MRA, a Michigan-based polling firm from polls before Trump and Harris’ debate Sept. 10.
That 2%-3% translates to as many as 165,000 Michigan voters, said Bernie Porn, EPIC-MRA’s president. President Joe Biden won Michigan by about 154,000 votes in 2020.
In a Marquette Law School Poll in Wisconsin released Sept. 11, two-thirds of would-be Kennedy voters in the state backed Trump in a two-person race against Harris.
“He certainly has some of the same anti-establishment appeal that Trump has,” said Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll. “That’s the obvious match between them on that.”
In the 2020 election, Biden won Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes. Third-party voters made up under 2% of the state’s total vote in 2020, or around 49,000 votes.
Democrats say they believe that Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump will prove negligible by Election Day, as Kennedy’s support was relatively low before dropping out.
UPSET WITH DEMOCRATS
Reuters found the Kennedy supporters it interviewed through a mix of in-person and virtual political rally events and via social media platforms. The interviews took place over the last several weeks.
Many were upset with the Democratic Party for what they saw as undemocratic tactics to keep Kennedy from getting on the ballot in some states. Democrats challenged Kennedy in states including Georgia, Nevada, Texas and New York.
“The Democratic Party, which I have supported at times, has shown itself to be a party that will do anything to remain in power,” said Kevin Nally, a 68-year-old retired systems administrator in Rochester, New York, who had supported Kennedy.
Nally said he voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and Biden in the 2020 election, but he believes the Democratic Party influenced social media companies and major media outlets to censor Kennedy and limit his exposure while misrepresenting him as a “fringe candidate.”
Kennedy was interviewed in person and his public statements were carried live by major media including Reuters, the New York Times, television networks and others. He has nearly 3 million followers on Instagram and 2.2 million on TikTok.
Nally said he will vote for Trump if Kennedy is not on the ballot in New York state.
Sanjay Paul, a 48-year-old online instructor in Midlothian, Virginia, was the one Kennedy supporter that Reuters spoke to for this story who now plans to vote for Harris. He did not vote for any candidate in the 2016 or 2020 elections.
“Kamala Harris can open up the conversation with issues that might have been put on the back burner, like around whether it’s abortion or equal pay or what the nuanced views are from the female perspective,” said Paul, though he added he sees positive qualities in all of the candidates.
In exchange for endorsing Trump, Kennedy, a 70-year-old environmental activist who has spread misinformation on vaccines, is hoping for a job in a potential Trump administration.
The son and nephew of two titans of Democratic politics who were assassinated during the 1960s, he entered the race as a Democrat but switched to become an independent candidate when it was clear he would not win the party’s nomination.
The Trump campaign said in response to this story that Trump is “building the largest, most diverse political movement in history.”
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Reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Heather Timmons
November 5, 20249:16 AM GMT+6Updated 4 hours ago
Item 1 of 2 Oct 20, 2024; Austin, Texas, USA; Joe Rogan talks to fans in the paddock at the Formula 1 Pirelli United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. Mandatory Credit: Aaron E. Martinez-Imagn Images/File Photo
[1/2]Oct 20, 2024; Austin, Texas, USA; Joe Rogan talks to fans in the paddock at the Formula 1 Pirelli United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. Mandatory Credit: Aaron E. Martinez-Imagn Images/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Popular podcaster Joe Rogan, who recently interviewed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for nearly three hours, said on Monday he has endorsed the former president in the race to the White House.
Trump faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 U.S. election in what polls show to be a tight race. Harris has got multiple celebrity endorsements.
“For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump,” Rogan said on X while posting a clip of his interview with billionaire Elon Musk, who has also endorsed Trump. Rogan said in his post that Musk made the “most compelling case for Trump.”
Trump’s recent interview with Rogan lasted about 3 hours and was released on YouTube and Spotify in late October. The two discussed a range of topics and the interview got over 45 million views on YouTube.
The former president criticized Rogan in August on Truth Social, his social media platform, after the podcaster praised then-independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. Kennedy has since pulled out of the race and endorsed Trump. Trump later called Rogan a “good guy.”
Trump and Harris have courted voters with appearances on podcasts, in addition to more traditional rallies and media interviews.
Spotify (SPOT.N), opens new tab said in March “The Joe Rogan Experience” had 14.5 million followers, almost triple the platform’s second most popular program. Rogan also has more than 19 million followers on Instagram and 18 million followers on YouTube.
A poll by YouGov last year found that 81% of his listeners are male and 56% are under 35 years old, a demographic that tends to support Trump over Harris.
Harris’ team had been in touch with Rogan’s program about a possible appearance but her campaign said in late October she will not appear on his podcast.
Rogan joins a list of celebrities like Musk and wrestler Hulk Hogan to have endorsed Trump.
Harris has a much bigger list of celebrity endorsements – ranging from basketball superstar Lebron James and actress Meryl Streep to comedian Chris Rock and former talk show host Oprah Winfrey. Superstar singers Beyonce and Taylor Swift have also endorsed her.
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Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Raju Gopalakrishnan
By Kanishka Singh and Sheila Dang
November 5, 20249:52 AM GMT+6Updated 4 hours ago
WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – False or misleading claims by billionaire Elon Musk about the U.S. election have amassed 2 billion views on social media platform X this year, according to a report, opens new tab by non-profit group Center for Countering Digital Hate.
The platform is also playing a central role in enabling the spread of false information about the critical battleground states that will likely determine the outcome of the presidential race, election and misinformation experts said on Monday.
A spokesperson for X said the company’s Community Notes feature, which lets users add additional context to posts, is more effective at helping people identify misleading content than traditional warning flags on posts.
Since taking over the company formerly known as Twitter, Musk has curtailed content moderation and laid off thousands of employees. He has thrown his support behind former President Donald Trump, who is locked in an exceptionally close race against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
Musk’s massive reach with nearly 203 million followers helps enable “network effects” in which content on X can jump to other social media and messaging platforms such as Reddit and Telegram, said Kathleen Carley, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and expert on disinformation. “X is a conduit from one platform to another,” she said.
At least 87 of Musk’s posts this year have promoted claims about the U.S. election that fact-checkers have rated as false or misleading, amassing 2 billion views, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s report.
In Pennsylvania, one of the seven key swing states, some X users have seized on instances of local election administrators flagging incomplete voter registration forms that would not be processed, falsely casting the events as examples of election interference, said Philip Hensley-Robin, Pennsylvania executive director at Common Cause, during a press briefing on Monday.
Common Cause is a nonpartisan organization that promotes accountable government and voting rights.
Some X accounts implied “that there was voter fraud, when in fact, we know very clearly that election officials and election administrators in all of our counties were following the rules and … therefore only eligible voters are voting,” Hensley-Robin said.
Cyabra, a firm that uses AI to detect online disinformation, said on Monday that an X account with 117,000 followers played a key role in helping spread a fake video purporting to show Pennsylvania mail-in ballots for Trump being destroyed.
X’s spokesperson said the platform took action against many accounts that shared the video.
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Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Sheila Dang in Austin; Additional reporting by Stephanie Burnett; Editing by Lincoln Feast
By Reuters
November 5, 20244:36 AM GMT+6Updated 9 hours ago
- A person picks up a sticker while voters head to a polling station as Georgians turned out a day after the battleground state opened early voting, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., October 16, 2024. REUTERS/Megan Varner/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – The top court in the battleground state of Georgia ruled on Monday that Cobb County cannot extend the deadline for counting about 3,000 absentee ballots that were sent out shortly before Election Day, handing a victory to the Republican National Committee and presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Siding with the RNC, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned a judge’s ruling extending the deadline until Friday in Cobb County, located in suburban Atlanta. The court decided that only absentee ballots that arrive by 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday (0000 GMT Wednesday) can be counted.
Civil rights groups had sued last week seeking to extend the deadline, arguing that the county violated state law by failing to promptly send out about 3,000 absentee ballots. County officials said they were overwhelmed by a surge in requests.
The Republican National Committee had argued that extending the deadline would violate state law.
“Election Day is Election Day – not the week after,” RNC Chair Michael Whatley wrote in a post on social media.
Cobb County is a large and racially diverse area in Atlanta’s northern suburbs. The county voted for Democrat Joe Biden over Trump by 14 percentage points in the 2020 election. Biden defeated Trump in Georgia in 2020.
A spokesperson for Cobb County did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The state high court ordered that ballots received after Election Day be separated from other ballots and set aside. Voters who did not receive an absentee ballot or did not have enough time to mail it can vote in person on Tuesday.
Georgia is one of seven closely contested states expected to decide the outcome of the race between Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
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Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham
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