(NewsNation) — Both current president Joe Biden and predecessor Donald Trump have a major problem on their hands, and his name is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
A new round of polling affirms he’s a threat to both in battleground states. Kennedy seems to be even more of a threat to Trump’s efforts, eating into the former president’s voting base by a near 2-to-1 margin.
The latest New York Times/Siena poll shows Kennedy at roughly 10% across the six key battleground states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona — that could likely decide the election.
A NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll from April shows that nearly half of Republicans, 48%, said they have a favorable view of Kennedy, while only 35% of Democrats do. While this suggests Kennedy could pose more of a problem for Trump, one voter told NewsNation that if the independent weren’t on the ballot, she would leave it blank.
“Trump is a career criminal, and I’ve never liked Biden,” she said. “I don’t like most of his policies, and I think our democracy is hanging by a thread.”
RFK Jr. says he made ballot in 14 states
So far, Kennedy has claimed he has enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in 14 states, the latest being Texas, NewsNation partner The Hill reported.
Kennedy’s campaign said Monday that the presidential hopeful and his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, turned in 245,572 signatures to the Texas secretary of state. The office said it received the petition, though it did not confirm the number of listed signatures, according to The Hill.
“By collecting nearly a quarter of a million signatures in just two months, the campaign has shown it can overcome the most difficult ballot access requirement in the country,” Kennedy campaign press secretary Stefanie Spear wrote on X.
Spear, in an interview with The Hill from last week, said Kennedy’s campaign is seeking to “pull votes away from disenfranchised voters of both President Biden and (former) President Trump.”