WASHINGTON — In fall 2016, a Hillary Clinton staffer stationed in the Upper Midwest got a call from the campaign’s headquarters in Brooklyn telling him to delete a joke he had tweeted about then-Green Party nominee Jill Stein.
The campaign’s policy, in keeping with the standard practice, was to not discuss third-party candidates, whom they viewed as minor nuisances to be ignored — not as adversaries worth combating openly, even in jest.
This year, though, Democrats have adopted a radically different strategy on independent and third-party candidates. They’re waging an open war on the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom they view as mortal threats to President Joe Biden’s re-election.
There are brand new super PACs — plural — devoted to crushing third-party candidates. Democratic National Committee mobile billboards troll Kennedy at events. And party donors are funding legal efforts to try to keep him off the ballot.
Democrats are adopting such a different posture in 2024 partly because of what happened after that fall 2016 phone call: Stein won enough votes in swing states like Michigan to potentially tip the close election to Donald Trump, and Clinton become the second Democrat in less than 20 years to lose the presidency after Green Party nominees won a mere 1% support in key states.
“Everyone thinks this is going to be decided on the head of a pin, so people are freaked out like never before,” said one senior Democrat, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Democrats have grown increasingly alarmed by Kennedy’s strength in polls, especially since he named Silicon Valley philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate. Not only could she fund the cash-strapped campaign, but her selection and the way the campaign introduced her signaled that Kennedy is positioning himself more on the left in the 2024 campaign.
Shanahan, who until recently was a sizable Democratic donor, announced on stage that she was leaving the Democratic Party and invited others to join her.
Democrats are especially concerned about Kennedy attracting low-propensity voters who are only marginally attached to the Democratic Party, including swaths of young people and, especially, young men of color.
Even a small number of defections from Biden's 2020 coalition could tip a key state against the president in 2024 and imperil his narrow path to victory.
“Since early January, it has not been difficult to convince people that this is a challenge and potential problem that needs to be taken seriously,” said Pete Kavanaugh, Biden’s former deputy campaign manager in 2020, who is now running a new Democratic super PAC called Clear Choice.
The group, which has the tacit blessing of Biden’s high command, is dedicated to stopping third-party candidates from gaining traction, through research, messaging and especially “ballot access accountability” — that is, trying to keep candidates off the ballot by exploiting any mistake they make in gathering and submitting petition signatures.
'The Democrat Party’s worst nightmare'
There were some self-organized efforts to combat former Green Party nominee Ralph Nader in 2004 (after Democrats blamed his 2000 performance in Florida for hurting Al Gore), and Democrats in 2020 worked quietly to block the rapper formerly known as Kanye West from the ballot.
But Democrats have never had a well-funded national strategy like the current one to combat third-party candidates. And Kennedy, an apostate of the most famous Democratic family in America, has proved to be a particularly appealing target for donors.
“He’s got a famous last name, he’s showing up in the numbers, and a lot of them have had personal interactions with him in the past, so there is significant interest in making sure these programs are funded,” said Kavanaugh.
Future Forward, the main pro-Biden super PAC, which raised over $150 million in 2020, could potentially run ads to tamp down third-party support, according to people familiar with the effort.
Meanwhile, an earlier coalition of outside groups that worked together to combat No Labels, the bipartisan group that ended its efforts to field a presidential ticket earlier Thursday, is pivoting to Kennedy and the other candidates.
“We have learned a lot in the No Labels campaign about how to make the case against third parties this cycle, and we’re deeply alarmed by the Kennedy campaign,” said Matt Bennett, the executive vice president of Third Way, the centrist Democratic think tank that served as a hub for that effort. “Ultimately, this is going to look different. It’s going to be a persuasion campaign in swing states to not vote for him.”
Donna Brazile, the famed Democratic strategist who managed Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, said the party was caught off guard by Nader, who won nearly 100,000 votes in Florida that year as Republican George W. Bush carried the state by a 537-vote margin.
“Our focus was on voter fatigue, apathy and the lack of enthusiasm,” said Brazile. “So, we missed the post-debate momentum that Team Nader generated in a number of battleground states, including Florida.”
Brazile added that in the current media landscape, it’s “vital” for the DNC to “keep a watchful eye” on candidates it might have dismissed in the past.
Kennedy, meanwhile, is spoiling for the fight since dropping out of the Democratic primary to run as an independent. He is accusing Democrats of being un-democratic and blasting out fundraising emails calling himself “the Democrat Party’s worst nightmare.”
“They are using a vast network of shadowy dark money groups and vicious attorneys to keep Kennedy/Shanahan ticket off state ballots and spread malicious smears,” he added in one missive.
Biden himself, however, is leaving it to outside groups and the DNC to engage with Kennedy, keeping his hands clean.
“We’re not giving this guy oxygen,” said one person familiar with the campaign’s thinking.
The Biden campaign wants the 2024 election to be seen as a binary choice between Biden and Trump. But its belief is that Kennedy is probably going to be a factor in only a handful of battleground states. And in those states, the battle for voters will be fought locally, with national support from the DNC and super PACs.
Why Trump thinks RFK is 'great for MAGA'
It's not just Democratic strategists who think Kennedy is a threat to Biden.
Kennedy is “great for MAGA,” Trump said on Truth Social last weekend, adding, “I love that he is running!” On Fox News, Trump said, “I think he’s probably going to hurt Biden. I don’t see him hurting me.”
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., a possible Trump running mate, said on Newsmax last week: “What we do realize is having that third-party candidate on the ballot, no matter the choice for vice president, is gonna bleed votes from the Democrats.”
Vivek Ramaswamy, the former GOP presidential candidate, said he hopes Kennedy gets on as many state ballots as possible since “it should take votes away from the Democrats," while former Trump spokesperson Erin Perrine said it was foolish to think "he would take votes from anybody other than Joe Biden."
Still, there is enormous uncertainty about how much third-party candidates will actually matter come November.
Kennedy has yet to secure ballot access in most states. And the polling data is messy enough that no one is comfortable saying exactly how much support Kennedy has, let alone how many of his supporters might otherwise go for Biden versus Trump. And historically, a large portion of voters who at some point tell pollsters they’ll vote third-party wind up pulling the lever for a major candidate.
And Kennedy is not well positioned to take advantage of the major source of progressive dissatisfaction with Biden: Israel’s conduct in its war against Hamas in Gaza, since Kennedy's stance on the conflict is similar to Biden’s.
Still, it's clear that at least some voters who might otherwise vote Democratic are attracted to Kennedy’s populist message.
“I like the fact that he’s interested in divorcing the corporate interests with government interests,” said a Biden 2020 voter who gave her name Joanna and attended last month’s event in Oakland unveiling Shanahan. “He has integrity, and he’s honest.”
If Kennedy is not on the ballot, she suggested she would likely vote for the Green Party nominee instead.
“I’ve actually voted Democrat my entire life," she said. "But I don’t think I’d do it this time."
