RFK Jr. Offers Biden Joint 'No Spoiler Pledge'

Despite being down 30 points in the latest polling, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. offered a "No Spoiler Pledge" to President Joe Biden last week. Under the terms of Kennedy’s audacious gambit, were Biden to accept the pledge, one of them would drop out before the November election to give the other a better chance of defeating former President Donald Trump.

The "No Spoiler Pledge" that Kennedy offered Biden included two components. First, the campaigns would co-fund a 50-state poll in mid-October involving more than 30,000 voters. This survey would assess two head-to-head matchups: Biden versus Trump and Kennedy versus Trump. The second component of the pledge stipulates that the candidate who performs worse against Trump in the head-to-head matchups would step aside to increase the other's chances of winning.

President Biden has yet to comment on the pledge. Matt Corridoni, a Democratic National Committee spokesperson, said that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the spoiler candidate and that the pledge announcement merely “reinforces how deeply unserious his campaign is.”

However, in the unlikely event Biden took the offer, Kennedy is confident of his chances against Biden, citing a recent poll his campaign funded through John Zogby Strategies. The 50-state poll, involving more than 26,000 likely voters, showed Kennedy leading Biden 47.7% to 40.5% in a direct matchup. It also showed Kennedy narrowly defeating Trump 42.2% to 41.7%, while Trump edged out Biden 46.1% to 45.7%.

This puckish pledge offer comes as polls consistently show Kennedy in a distant third place. According to a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted April 25-30 that included Kennedy, independent Cornel West, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Kennedy garnered only 12% support among registered voters. Trump and Biden each received 42%, while West and Stein received 2% and 1%, respectively.

A separate I&I/TIPP poll conducted May 3-5 with 1,264 registered voters echoed these results. Kennedy received 12% support, while Trump and Biden received 38% and 39%, respectively. West and Stein each received 1%.

Although there is no indication the Biden campaign will even consider accepting Kennedy's pledge, there is data showing why the president would like to get RFK Jr. out of the race: Including third-party candidates generally weakens Biden's standing against Trump. In the aforementioned ABC poll, Biden leads Trump by one point in a head-to-head matchup but only ties in a five-candidate race. Similarly, in the I&I/TIPP poll, Biden's two-point lead in a direct matchup narrows to one point when including all five candidates. 

This effect is replicated in most polls, as the current RCP Average for the two-way race shows Trump leading by 1.1 points, but in the RCP Average for the five-way race, his lead expands to 2.7 points. This suggests that if current poll trends continue, Biden could benefit from consolidating the field to make the race closer to a head-to-head contest in November.