How RFK Jr. Could Open a Can of Brain Worms at the Debates

This week, we examine the ways in which RFK Jr. can throw a “hand grenade” into the presidential debates. Plus, we go inside a new Democratic PAC that is aiming low, and get a preview of Biden’s “uncommitted” critics landing some delegates for the Democratic National Convention.

Amid a flurry of news earlier this week on the newly announced slate of presidential debates, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pulled a Trumpian move by preemptively declaring he will meet the standards and qualify to appear.

He also accused his opponents of “colluding” to keep him off the debate stage. But if Kennedy can actually make the debates, it could open a can of brain worms for President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

“The problem with RFK is he’s a wild card,” a Trump-aligned GOP strategist told The Daily Beast, requesting anonymity to relay private political strategy.

The independent candidate and potential spoiler “could be a hand grenade that goes off in Trump’s fucking balls,” this MAGA Republican added, “or a hand grenade that goes off in Biden’s balls. Why would you want to test that if there’s a 50-50 chance?”

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Some Republicans in the Trump campaign orbit have privately expressed excitement at the prospect of the former president being able to gang up on Biden with Kennedy’s help. Others worry the dynamic could get out of hand, allowing Biden to sit back, show himself to be above the fray, and enjoy the show.

Unfortunately for Kennedy, he’s running out of time.

Even though Biden ditched the official Commission on Presidential Debates in his proposal for two much earlier contests, CNN is keeping the organization’s rules in place for a newly scheduled June 27 showdown. That leaves Kennedy in the same bind he would have otherwise faced had the old system remained in play—except with a much tighter time window.

In order to make the first debate, he needs to not only hit an average of 15 percent across four different national polls (one less for CNN than the commission’s required five), but also qualify for the ballot in enough states to hit 270 electoral votes.

Kennedy isn’t far off on the polling front. He has hit over 10 percent in some polls, and has averaged around 8 percent support in three-way polling over the past six weeks.

Yet when it comes to the ballot qualification part of the rules, he will need to kick it into high gear.

For the sake of simplicity, even if the Kennedy campaign is true to their word about the candidate collecting enough signatures to make the ballot in 13 states so far—some of which have not officially confirmed it—he’s still up against the clock.

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There are five states with a ballot-access deadline before the CNN debate. Two of them, Texas and New York, are worth 68 electoral votes combined. The Kennedy campaign submitted more than twice the amount of signatures required to be on the ballot in Texas, but they still haven’t locked down New York.

Kennedy isn’t on the ballot yet in the other three: Montana, Illinois, and New Mexico.

That leaves him at 187 eligible electoral votes, by his campaign’s count. However, he’s only officially on the ballot in four states—Utah, Michigan, Hawaii, and California—amounting to just 79 votes.

Being on the ballot in Michigan could be enough for Kennedy to throw the election for Biden or Trump, but it’s not enough to get the candidate and his well-funded campaign a chance at something money can’t buy. A third-party candidate has not been on the debate stage since Ross Perot in 1992. It would give Kennedy an unprecedented level of exposure and a patina of legitimacy in the eyes of undecided voters.

“Definitely being on the debate stage would get a whole lot of attention,” said Hans Noel, a Georgetown University political scientist and author of The Party Decides.

“It’s a big deal,” Noel said of the new format and Kennedy’s chance to make it a three-way debate, noting it could answer a lot of American voter frustrations with the usual ones. “I actually think debates where the moderators kind of have a light hand and they let people argue back and forth are often the best, but you really can’t do that with three voices.”

Pointing to how difficult it’s been for third-party candidates to get on the ballot since Perot pulled it off more than three decades ago, Noel said Kennedy “being on the stage probably is the difference between him fading away and getting maybe a lot—but still not a significant—number of votes and approaching that 20 percent record high.”

Still, the ballot qualification side of the equation isn’t the only issue for Kennedy. While he’s not far off from hitting 15 percent in the polls, CNN’s criteria only allow for surveys “that meet CNN’s standards for reporting.”

A CNN spokesperson said the network will consider polls from itself—unsurprisingly—along with those sponsored by ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, Marquette University Law School, Monmouth University, NBC News, the New York Times/Siena College, NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College, Quinnipiac University, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

The window for qualifying polls goes back to March 13, and closes seven days ahead of the debate.

Trump, always with a keen eye for polling numbers, simultaneously knocked Kennedy for being “on a downward path” while also trying to make it seem like he’s not at all worried about the 70-year-old.

“Crooked Joe Biden does not want RFK Jr. in the debates because Junior is far left him [sic.] and they would be debating over the same territory… HE’s also sharper and far more intelligent than Joe, all making for a bad combination of ingredients,” Trump said in a Thursday post on Truth Social. “I don’t care if Junios’ [sic.] joins the Debate, but right now his polling numbers are very low, he is not properly qualified in the States, and he seems to be on a downward path. Junior’ needs more than his name to get on the ‘stage!’”

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Later that same day, he told Scripps News “I would have no problem if he got whatever the threshold is,” once again dinging Kennedy for having “very low” poll numbers and “heading in the other direction, in the wrong direction.”

Trump’s biggest weakness, should Kennedy qualify, would be on the topic of vaccines, the MAGA strategist said. Meanwhile, Biden “looks old, and Kennedy looks young and he’s jacked.”

The Trump campaign still hasn’t quite found an attack on Kennedy that would stick, while the Democrats have been zeroing in on RFK Jr.’s ability to spoil the election and help Trump win with a series of billboard ads in swing states.

Neither the Kennedy, Trump, or Biden campaigns would comment on how they’d handle a three-way debate. The Kennedy campaign also did not say which states they’re prioritizing to get to 270 eligible electoral votes by June 20.

With less than six weeks until the debate and just five for Kennedy to meet the qualifications, his campaign may be approaching a make-or-break moment.

Kennedy making the debate stage can allow voters to see him as “a legitimate option,” Noel said. “But if he's not on the debate stage, people aren't going to think that way.”

As for Biden and Trump, the new and earlier debate format could end up being a historically big deal in the history of presidential campaigns, the professor noted.

“Now it really looks like a debate might matter,” Noel said, “because both of these people are in front of audiences where they’re not challenged all that often.”

DIRT ROADS AND ‘POINTS ON THE BOARD’

A pair of battle-tested Southern Democrats are launching a new initiative, not aiming to flip states from red to blue but to merely “put points on the board” and claw back margins in state legislatures.

It may not be the sexiest work this cycle, but the Dirt Road Democrats PAC is trying to take a bite out of GOP supermajorities by winning enough seats to give their party a fighting chance at thwarting Republican efforts to pass bills designed to end up in the conservative-majority Supreme Court.

“We’re about one thing: putting points on the board,” Brandon Presley, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Mississippi in 2023 and a co-chair of the Dirt Road Democrats, told The Daily Beast.

The group doesn’t have a hard fundraising goal, though it did spend more than $200,000 on investments in state parties, candidates, and turnout organizations in rural areas last year, including the Virginia Democratic Party’s local candidates program, which helped Democrats take back the state House.

Small improvements in the Democrats’ margins in deep red states like Arkansas would be a win, co-chair Chris Jones told The Daily Beast.

“Even if we improve by 5 percent, it will sort of lift the floor. It will give voters an option and a choice,” said Jones, who was Arkansas’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee in 2022. “And that 5 percent, in some states, can make a huge difference. An improvement of 5points can break the supermajority in Arkansas. We need to flip eight seats to break the supermajority in Arkansas.”

Democratic donors can get an even bigger bang for their buck in these rural seats, the group argues. Some unopposed Republican incumbents haven’t even raised over $10,000 in past races, and the PAC is solely focused on giving Democratic candidates a shot where the party would otherwise have nobody running at all.

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“This isn’t about any consultants getting rich,” Jones said. “This is about putting money behind candidates and organizations and party infrastructure that's going to make a difference.”

New GOP laws restricting abortion and other reproductive rights can cruise through states with Republican supermajorities, but having enough Democrats around to throw a wrench into the process and give the party a foothold is invaluable, the co-chairs emphasized.

“And why does that matter?” Jones said. “Because the legislative supermajorities are the ones that are extremists and they’re passing these extreme laws that end up at the Supreme Court and affect us all.”

Another goal of the group is to improve the Democratic Party’s brand in areas where candidates rarely, if ever, visit.

“Does it mean you win all of ’em? No, I didn’t wake up in Disneyland,” Presley said.

But if Democrats can show they have “the guts enough to go out there and face voters,” Presley added, then it’ll all be worth it.

“You show them that you respect them enough to know where their community is,” he said, “and show up.”

‘UNCOMMITTED’ GETS DELEGATES

Plans are still being ironed out for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this August, but one thing is for certain: President Biden’s “uncommitted” critics, irate over his handling of the war in Gaza, will have a seat at the table.

Layla Elabed, the campaign manager for Listen to Michigan, which became a catalyst for similar movements across the country, caught up with The Daily Beast after the group secured their two Michigan delegates at the convention. They’ll be joined by eight delegates from Minnesota, and more to come from other states.

“Uncommitted delegates will be going to the DNC as a unified coalition upholding our pro-peace, anti-war agenda,” Elabed told The Daily Best. “And the hope is uncommitted delegates will participate in all of the proceedings available to Biden delegates.”

Elabed, who’s also Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s sister, said she’s disappointed that the DNC is considering making parts of the convention virtual, a potential move stemming from anxiety over pro-Palestinian protests.

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“The DNC’s attempt to sideline any discourse or sanitize this convention undermines the spirit of democracy that the Democratic Party’s voting base expects them to champion, as they’ve always done,” she said. “I think the idea of doing this hybrid type thing should be upsetting—not just for uncommitted delegates, but Biden delegates also.”

Although she’s not a delegate and won’t be credentialed for the event, Elabed said she plans on heading over to Chicago for the convention to keep hammering home the message that Biden needs the support of voters disaffected over his support for the Israeli military.

“It has never been about ousting the president,” Elabed said, “it has been about showing the president that he is going to be in trouble, and he’s going to have trouble with his re-election if he doesn’t change his policy right now on Israel.”

OFF THE BEATEN PATH

Rick Scott Can’t Quit This Self-Own

As Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) has continued to defend Trump during his Manhattan criminal trial, he keeps bringing up one of the darker chapters in his rise to power.

Scott has repeatedly insisted the Department of Justice “went after me” when he was prosecuted as CEO of Columbia/Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). The company was fined $1.7 billion for Medicare fraud, and Scott seems to think that’s comparable to what Trump is going through.

“I can relate to this. I went through this—I was the lead opponent of HillaryCare,” Scott said at an event in Pinellas County on Monday after making similar remarks outside the courthouse last week. “HillaryCare was a government takeover of health care. I completely opposed it. I was in the hospital business at the time. She used the—the Clinton Justice Department went after me. Now, I think it was wrong, and I’ve watched this happen to businesses.”

A senior Florida Democratic operative told The Daily Beast they expect these comments to be a gift come November, when Scott faces re-election.

“Rick Scott admitted to overseeing the largest Medicare fraud in history and wrote the plan to gut Medicare,” the Florida Democrat said, requesting anonymity to discuss yet-to-be-finalized plans to hit Scott on the airwaves. “Anytime he reminds voters of his attacks on the health care that nearly five million Floridians depend on, it’s a reminder why he shouldn’t be in the Senate.”

China Hawk Silent on the Tok

Joe Kent, a MAGA congressional hopeful out of Washington running in the state’s 3rd District, really, really likes to talk a tough game on China. He tweets about it all the time.

Yet a Daily Beast review of his tweets and previous public remarks found one seemingly clear-cut component of his China critique conspicuously absent. Kent, as far as we can tell, never mentions the country’s partial ownership of TikTok.

Despite TikTok’s looming ban centering on China’s ownership, Kent hasn’t even talked about the bill. He has, however, received help from the Protect Freedom PAC, which is funded by billionaire Jeffrey Yass, one of TikTok’s biggest investors.

Kent’s opponent, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, told The Daily Beast she’s planning on taking him to task over the social media app.

“Joe Kent’s always had a soft spot for Putin, but it’s clear he’s got one for China too,” Gluesenkamp Perez told The Daily Beast in a text message. “He’s oddly silent about military aid for Taiwan and a ban on Chinese state ownership of TikTok, two big, bipartisan national security priorities. But with TikTok’s biggest investor now dumping money into this election to prop up Joe Kent, it’s clear why and how Joe Kent’s silence can be bought. Any authoritarian regime is fine by Joe Kent so long as his and their interests are aligned.”

Kent’s campaign did not return a request for comment.

Big Texas Ad Rollout

Texas Senate challenger and former NFL linebacker Colin Allred is out with his first ad of the general election against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

It’s nothing fancy and touts his background, going from the son of a single mom to earning a football scholarship at Baylor to making it to the NFL and eventually civil rights law. In another ad as part of his campaign’s first series for the general, he distances himself from President Biden, saying “I’ve stood up to the president when he’s wrong, to defend Texas energy jobs and secure our border.”

He also touts his plan to add more border patrol agents and protect Medicare.

The campaign is running the ads statewide in digital form and in the TV markets of Laredo, Mcallen/Brownsville, Houston, and San Antonio, according to the campaign. Allred also speaks Spanish in a Spanish-language version of one of the ads, which includes his NFL background and shots of his young family.

CAMPAIGN LIT

Tim Scott’s veepstakes closer. To gain an edge as one of the favorites to become Trump’s VP, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) has enlisted the help of Kellyanne Conway, Reese Gorman scoops.

The hardest-working troll in Congress. Riley Rogerson profiles Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), a freshman congressman and seasoned shitposter.

Totally not sketchy. Roger Sollenberger and Mini Racker examine a new dark money group with connections to Dr. Oz’s 2022 campaign in this week’s Pay Dirt.

Biden’s Sun Belt problem. The president is doing fine in the Rust Belt, but there are serious warning signs emerging from Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, Jake Lahut reports.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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