Senators Warn RFK Jr. Could Tilt Presidential Election

Senators in both parties are warning that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may end up tipping the presidential election to either former President Trump or President Biden, but Democrats are expressing more worries he could be a spoiler candidate than Republicans.

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), one of President Biden’s most outspoken defenders on Capitol Hill, said it’s hard to predict how exactly Kennedy will impact the race for the White House.

But she expressed concern that he will hurt Biden more because of his relationship to former President Kennedy, his uncle, and former attorney general and presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy — two legendary figures in the Democratic Party.

“I think he’s basically helping Trump,” she said. “I think he’s being used.”

Democrats were shocked when Kennedy recently declared Biden is a “much worse threat to democracy” than Trump because he is the “first candidate in history, the first president in history, that has used federal agencies to censor political speech” and to “censor his opponent.”

The claim sounded like an argument Trump would make at a political rally, the Democrats said.

In announcing his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, a wealthy Democratic donor, Kennedy declared the values of the Democratic Party have changed since the days of Camelot.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who represents a key presidential battleground state, conceded Kennedy’s “last name would have the potential of hurting Biden.”

At the organization level, Democrats are also signaling their concerns.

The Democratic National Committee has set up a team led by former White House counsel Dana Remus to track Kennedy’s efforts to get on the battle in swing states. Biden’s allies at the DNC are also stepping up efforts to define Kennedy as a radical who shares Trump’s embrace of the anti-vaccine movement.

Stabenow argued Kennedy is more similar to Trump because “the reality is that Kennedy believes in conspiracies and doesn’t believe in science, and that’s very aligned with Donald Trump.