Why Robert Kennedy Jr.’s bid in 2024 is a headache file for Biden

President Biden may appear to be on cruise control until the heat of the 2024 general election. Nearly all of the country’s top Democrats have rallied behind him, and the battle for the Republican nomination appears to revolve around Donald J. Trump’s legal troubles.

But he nevertheless faces his own version of a primary: a campaign to bolster support from skeptical Democratic voters.

As much as the president is eager to turn to his looming run against a Republican — he has indicated he craves a rematch with Mr. Trump — his Democratic allies warn he has important work to do with voters in his own party. He still has to find ways to promote his accomplishments, reassure voters wary of his age, and unseat the Democratic challengers he has without any drama.

Those fledgling rivals include Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist with a celebrated Democratic heritage who has emerged with unexpected vigor in early polls, even as he spread conspiracy theories and collaborated with right-wing figures and billionaire donors. Kennedy’s support from the Democrats, as high as 20 percent in some polls, serves as a bracing reminder of left-wing voters’ healthy hunger for a Biden alternative, and a glaring symbol of the president’s foibles.

“Clearly there is a softness that may come from concerns about electability in 2024,” said Julián Castro, the former housing secretary who ran for president in 2020 against Mr Biden. “While he has achieved a lot, there are areas where I think people feel he has not quite delivered on what was promised in areas such as voting rights, immigration reform, police reform and some aspect of climate.

The White House is taking steps to strengthen Mr Biden’s political hand and is planning a summer of events to promote his legislative achievements. This week, he’s making his first overnight campaign trip since announcing his re-election bid, a fundraising drive across Northern California. Last week, he accepted messages of support from the country’s largest environmental and labor organizations, which his campaign says will help him rally democratic support.

His campaign started this month online advertisements highlight his record. The Biden team even paid for a billboard truck to circle the Capitol and park it in front of the Republican National Committee headquarters.

Still, some of Biden’s allies say they’re concerned that the president’s still-emerging campaign could test the depth of his troubles with Democratic voters, who consistently told pollsters they would prefer Mr Biden not to seek re-election. Voters remain concerned about inflation and his stewardship of the economy.

Some allies have even decided not to wait for the president’s team, launching freelance voter campaigns designed to boost his support in key positions.

This month, Mayor Paige Cognetti of Scranton, Pa., and three other Pennsylvania mayors boarded a rented van for a road trip across the state to promote projects funded by the Biden administration because they were concerned that voters didn’t know about it.

In Harrisburg, they met Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis, a Democrat who took office last year. Mr Davis said Mr Biden had done “some great things” but feared voters didn’t know. He recalled campaigning in black barbershops in Philadelphia and hearing that voters felt the country was better off under Mr. Trump.

“They’ve told the American people and the people of Pennsylvania pretty badly what they’ve done,” Davis said.

Kennedy’s popularity in polls is largely due to his family, which includes three Democratic senators, a president, and numerous other prominent figures. A poll from CNN late last month which showed Mr. Kennedy had 20 percent support against Mr. Biden, found that the main reason voters liked him was the name Kennedy.

Polls have suggested that large numbers of Democratic voters are willing to tell pollsters they would take anyone over Biden. A poll from a TV station in Baltimore found last week that 41 percent of Maryland Democrats preferred their governor, Wes Moore, to Mr. Biden, even though Mr. Moore supports the president’s re-election.

But if Mr. Kennedy manages to maintain this level of support, he could embarrass Mr. Biden in the primary.

Can Bobby Kennedy catch a spark? Maybe,” said Michael Novogratz, a billionaire Democratic donor who supported Biden in 2020 but has pledged not to support any candidate over the age of 72. , eloquent, eloquent, connected, has the name Kennedy and would draw many of the Trump voters.”

The place where Mr. Kennedy could prove to be the biggest nuisance is New Hampshire, where the president has alienated core supporters by shuffling the Democratic presidential nomination calendar to put South Carolina’s primaries first, ahead of the Granite State.

Democrats in New Hampshire worry that Mr. Biden will skip their primary, which will likely come before the slot allotted to the state by the Democratic National Committee. They also worry that if Mr. Biden does run, enough independent voters angry at him for trying to take South Carolina to the next level will cast a protest vote for Mr. Kennedy to inflict an early but cosmetic primary defeat on the president to take.

“If people feel hurt or belittled, that goes a long way with people in New Hampshire,” said Lou D’Allesandro, a Democratic state senator and longtime ally of Biden, who warned that the president’s rejection of his state could lead to a Kennedy victory there. .

A lawyer who rose to prominence as an environmental activist in New York in the 1990s, Mr Kennedy, 69, has received a boost from conservative figures such as Elon Musk, the Twitter owner who recently received him on a two-hour online audio chat, and David Sacks, a venture capitalist and supporter of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis holding a Kennedy fundraiser last week in California.

Mr. Kennedy has taken positions that pit him against virtually all Democratic voters. He opposed a ban on assault weapons, spread pro-Russian talking points about the war in Ukraine and suggested that US presidential campaigns had been rigged. He has also long dabbled in vaccine conspiracy theories.

A super PAC supporting Mr. Kennedy has raised at least $5.7 million, according to John Gilmore, the executive director.

The Kennedy campaign is led by Dennis Kucinich, the former left-wing congressman and mayor of Cleveland, who has cited Mr. Kennedy’s plethora of right-wing views as evidence that he is better positioned to win a general election than Mr. Biden – who won in 2020 with significant support from Trump-skeptical moderate Republicans.

“Mr. Kennedy is the only person who has the qualities that can bring about the unity most Americans crave,” said Mr. Kucinich. “He speaks a language of reconciliation and compassion.”

Aside from fundraising, the Biden campaign hasn’t had much of a public presence since its formal rollout in April. Top officials have spent the past few days in Wilmington, Del., shopping for office space for a campaign headquarters that is expected to open in July, according to two people familiar with the discussions. The campaign, which has only a few employees on its payroll, is expected to add more staff once offices open.

White House officials are planning an “invest in America” summer tour that will see Mr Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, their spouses and cabinet members tour the country promoting the results of legislation Mr Biden signed into law to finance infrastructure and climate projects across the country.

They believe those trips will generate positive local coverage that will be the first step — surely followed by hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising from the Biden campaign and its allies — toward educating Biden-skeptical Democrats and wayward independent voters that Mr. Biden deserves a second term.

“The more Americans learn about the president’s investment agenda in America, the more they support it,” said Ben LaBolt, White House communications director. “That’s a huge opportunity for us.”

It is not uncommon for a sitting president to face dissension in his party before being reappointed. At the end of 2010, Gallup found Hillary Clinton with 37 percent support in a hypothetical 2012 primary against President Barack Obama, although that was months before he announced his re-election bid.

During the 2012 Democratic presidential primaries, a felon received 41 percent of the Democratic vote in West Virginia, and a little-known lawyer took 42 percent in Arkansas. Neither result cost Obama on his way to winning the nomination and re-election.

The White House, the Democratic National Committee and Mr. Biden’s reelection campaign have all refused to talk officially about Mr. Kennedy — a coordinated effort to deprive him of oxygen.

Mr Biden’s allies, however, are less coy.

“That campaign is a joke,” said Representative Robert Garcia of California, a Democrat whom Mr Biden had referred to his campaign’s national advisory board last month. “He’s playing in the wrong primaries and has no chance of getting any kind of support.”

Mr. Garcia added: “His views and worldview are dangerous.”

Yet Mr. Kennedy’s early strength highlights Biden’s weaknesses that Republicans are all too eager to exploit.

Polls conducted in May for Way to Win, a Democratic-affiliated group, found that only 22 percent of Latino voters and 33 percent of Black voters knew about “any specific thing” that Mr Biden said during his tenure had done to improve their lives.

“There isn’t a single phrase that everyone can repeat that sticks,” said Tory Gavito, the president of Way to Win. “What is happening is that the GOP is flooding the airwaves with a narrative of economic failure, and that is starting to resonate.”

Rebecca Davis O’Brien reporting contributed.