A new poll shows President Joe Biden leading Trump 44% to 37%, with Kennedy notching 16%.

Released by Marist in partnership with NPR and PBS Newshour on Tuesday, the poll shows a five-point drop among Democrats for Biden with Kennedy in the race. Meanwhile, the survey indicates a 10-point drop among Republicans for Trump with RFK Jr. on the ticket.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      They give a general idea of how the public will vote when it comes to spoiler candidates. No, they don’t consider regional differences, but I wouldn’t say they are meaningless.

      • SARGEx117@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Not saying polls don’t have their worth, but you can make polls say basically whatever you want.

        “poll of 2,000 people of varying ages, genders, backgrounds” when they stood out in front of a music theater to get opinions on modern rap music. The results are biased because of how they collected them. Yeah, technically everyone coming out of that theater fits your “different ages sexes” and so on, but they’re all going to have strong opinions based on why they have gathered in common interest.

        • ala@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          gotta block this user. someone this uninformed about things has no business ever being in front of my eyes again.

    • alvvayson@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s not how polling works.

      Small sample size national polls are always the first line of polling.

      They are not meaningless, even if they don’t have the same precision as exit polling.

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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        1 year ago

        What I mean is, thanks to the electoral college, running a national poll as though it means anything is pointless.

        We saw this in 2016 with Clinton. National polling showed her winning, and as far as the popular vote was concerned, she won.

        Which means jack all in the electoral college.

        • alvvayson@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I understand that, but you are just too black and white.

          There is a middle ground of indicative truth between being 100% precise or totally wrong.

        • CoggyMcFee@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Polling showed Clinton as being most likely to win. The fact that she didn’t win doesn’t mean the polling is necessarily meaningless. Even if someone has a 90% chance of winning, it means they can not only lose, but 1 in 10 times you expect them to lose.

          • dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Exactly. The polls showed that Trump had a small chance of winning and he did. It’s just like with the weather. When there’s a 90% chance of rain and it doesn’t rain, people say the weather person knows nothing, but that’s not how it works.

        • cerevant@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Seems to me that your mistake is that you believe the purpose of polls is to predict an outcome, and/or tell you who is “winning” or “losing” at a given point in time. That is not their purpose.

          Their purpose is to gauge the relative effectiveness of different campaign messaging strategies, and to give a rough order of magnitude of a campaign’s trajectory.

          Here’s the most important part: polls contain no actionable data for voters. They shouldn’t influence whether or how much you volunteer or donate, and they absolutely must not influence how you vote.

    • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      So true! Also, even if this data is 100% accurate, that means 16% of people prefer him to Trump (or Biden). But come election day, the one thing Republicans can be counted on to do is to check the box next to the ‘R’ candidate, no matter what.

      It will be interesting to see what effect he has on turnout, if any…

  • Rapidcreek@reddthat.com
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    1 year ago

    “I refuse to believe this poll because PBS and NPR are secretly controlled by the Tri-lateral commission, the Pro Bowlers Tour and Baskin-Robbins. Do your own research!”

    • RFK “I am not a crackpot!” Jr.
    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      16% is basically frustration with the other choices available. It’s not the percentage that would actually vote for him if an election were held tomorrow. It is a bit high considering how awful RFK is, but it just shows how incredibly unpopular the other options are.

      • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m done making bets on anything about Trump’s actions. He’s way too chaotic and high on his own supply. There’s just no way to predict his actions. He very well might think he can take on RFK and that all the polls are wrong.

    • RaincoatsGeorge@lemmy.zip
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      I really hope that they get completely crushed in the election. The strongest message possible has to be sent. One where they can’t claim the election was stolen or any bullshit excuse (of course they will still try).

      This has to be the end of trump and his cronies or it’s going to be the end of us as a nation. There’s no middle ground at all.

      • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        A solitary vote should, in theory, be enough. I agree with hoping for a strong message, however we shouldn’t normalize cheating in elections. We should combat it by shoring up the election process and system not either side winning by bigger margins.

        However, a profound defeat may make it more obvious to those in the future that not rooting out problems early leads to long term losses not gains. Make fair elections to be in their interest.

  • Binthinkin@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Makes sense because only non-starters would vote for a highball douchebag Kennedy like little Robbie.

    Nobody wants your brand Rob. Rich, drunk, drug user, crazy, dumb fuck.

    Nobody wants that.

    • blazeknave@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I don’t even consider him getting convicted honestly. I’m actually questioning whether it’s a conspiracy and/or just inevitably, too distract and get guard down for Dems, and he just throws support behind trump at 11th hour

  • frezik
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    1 year ago

    Funny, I’ve been told by right-wing commenters that RFK Jr is “Democrats’ kryptonite”. Are you saying they have no idea what they’re talking about, and their model of the inner workings of anyone to the left of Mitch McConnell is faulty?

    • kandoh@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      My 64 year old father who doesn’t really pay attention to politics brought up RFK Jr as trouble for Biden. He seemed disappointed when I said the vaccine conspiracy and not supporting Ukraine would sink him.

      It’s weird to hear him bring up Kennedy Jr out of the blue like that. He’s been drowning himself in crypto currency stuff these last few years, so it’s not a good sign that he’s started talking about the WEF and shit like that.

      • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        Might be good to have some politics chats, in particular about propaganda and right wing indoctrination via crypto, YouTube and right wing media. He’s obviously getting some kind of influence and there are too many stories about parents being lost to hatred and fear, despite being perfectly normal in the years prior.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    kennedy getting favorable coverage for republican media tends to affect republicans.

  • Queuewho@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    One thing that’s been nice on Lemmy so far is we can actually discuss polls without all the top level posts being something along the lines of “Don’t listen to polls, VOTE!”… as if anyone who subs to the politics section of a social media site doesn’t know voting is important.

    • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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      1 year ago

      I agree, but I still think you might be surprised how many actually don’t sometimes or always in practice. I would assume it’s less than the average person, but it’s not zero.

    • blazeknave@lemmy.world
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      I’m actually curious how accurate/meaningful this poll is, and whether we found expect to see this continue over the year.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          1 year ago

          Our political system might be fucked up, but at least it does produce a lot of drama. You’re welcome world (or we’re sorry if it caused you harm).

  • BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If he pulls enough from Biden to cause the contingent election scenario (in which case, the incoming congress decides the winner not by voting seats, but with each state delegation able to cast 1 vote) it might not matter to the GOP if RFK pulls more from Trump than from Biden.

    If you game out the probabilities- It’s very unlikely that Trump beats Biden It’s also unlikely that RFK gets enough votes to deny Biden an outright win, but is it less so? It’s very likely that the GOP will control more state delegations than the Democrats will, by virtue of their state-level gerrymanders.

    The contingent election moonshot might be the GOP’s best shot at winning control of the White House in 2024

    • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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      1 year ago

      It does matter if it causes some states to flip to Biden instead of trump and give their college votes to Biden instead of trump.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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      I don’t know about that. He has been heavily funded by right-wing sources in the hopes of spoiling for Biden.

      • Perfide@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        Funding doesn’t mean shit, you still have to actually convince people. Literally all he has to offer that democrats might view as a “positive” is that he’s a Kennedy. That’s it. He’s solely banking on the hope that dems will be too stupid to consider anything about him other than his fucking last name. Problem with that is, that level of unquestionable devotion to a political entity is solidly a republican trait nowadays.

    • sab@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      The yoga antivax crowd is a pretty confusing one. They’re as anti science as Trump, but consider themselves to belong on the political left. So it’s not as obvious as one might immediately think.

        • sab@kbin.social
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          I tend to agree, but then again I would have said the same thing about the Tea Party some years ago. And in presidential elections it could very much be decided on the margins, which is why people are concerned. At Jr. events there tend to be a solid number of people who consider themselves Obama era democrats.

            • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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              I figure the people that were/are constantly talking up someone like DeSadist as some kind of white knight for the New Donnie-Free Republican Party are either deeply deluded about his chances, or are keeping him groomed in case the nepo baby suddenly dies or is incapacitated due to his age and deeply unhealthy lifestyle.

          • Maeve@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Poor people who have barely learned to read, let alone critically, are great stooges. And Obama was economically right.

            • sab@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              I think there’s also a great element of mental illness involved. RFK Jr. was neither illiterate or stupid, he just went over the edge at some point. I suspect the same is true for many of his (potential) voters.

              • Maeve@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                Right. Complex trauma is evident, in politicians and their voters. Fwiw, I was referencing the voters. Most politicians had a decent education.

      • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
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        I am always a bit offended by the inclusion of yoga here. I do yoga as a way to stay in shape, and flexible, but I am in no way antivax. In my social bubble there are many like me. Is this stereotype really still warranted?

        • sab@kbin.social
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          I see the frustration - I have nothing against yoga at all! I just think there are two very different types of vaccine sceptics, and that they can effectively be sorted by their attitudes to yoga. I don’t think there’s any correlation between being pro yoga and being anti vaccine. :)

      • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        i think it’s due to historically coming from the anti gmo earth crunchy group (i say this as someone who is pretty earth crunchy but not anti vaxx or gmo).

        • sab@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          I think there’s a risk of people discovering actual truths that are not widely promoted that they tend to overdo it a bit and obsess over finding truths everywhere.

          RFK’s background makes sense in that regard - both as a Kennedy and as a climate lawyer. No wonder he lost trust (and/or his mind).

    • ares35@kbin.social
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      dunno about that. this says there’s more crazies out there than last time around.

    • RaincoatsGeorge@lemmy.zip
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      She’s the biggest surprise here. I can’t believe she married this doofus. Not that I know anything about her beyond curb. But I would have hoped she wasn’t on the antivax conspiracy train and it unfortunately appears that she is.