Former President Donald J. Trump is sharpening his assaults on the impartial presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as new polls present an overlap between their core supporters.
In a collection of posts on his Fact Social media platform on Friday night time, Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, took goal at each Mr. Kennedy and his working mate, Nicole Shanahan, a rich Silicon Valley lawyer and investor.
“RFK Jr. is a Democrat ‘Plant,’ a Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place in an effort to assist Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President within the Historical past of the USA, get Re-Elected,” Mr. Trump wrote.
Mr. Trump, who had privately mentioned the concept of Mr. Kennedy as a working mate, echoed what Democrats have been saying for months about Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy — that it may swing the election. He additionally gave the impression to be adopting a brand new derisive nickname for him.
“A Vote for Junior’ would primarily be a WASTED PROTEST VOTE, that might swing both means, however would solely swing in opposition to the Democrats if Republicans knew the true story about him,” he stated.
Mr. Kennedy fired again on Saturday in his personal social media put up.
“When frightened males take to social media they danger descending into vitriol, which makes them sound unhinged,” he wrote on X. “President Trump’s rant in opposition to me is a barely coherent barrage of untamed and inaccurate claims that ought to finest be resolved within the American custom of presidential debate.”
Mr. Kennedy additional tried to goad the previous president.
“As a substitute of lobbing toxic bombs from the protection of his bunker, let’s hear President Trump defend his file to me mano-a-mano by respectful, congenial debate,” he wrote.
Mr. Trump additionally took a swipe at Mr. Kennedy’s working mate, Ms. Shanahan, who gave $2 million out of the $5.4 million that Mr. Kennedy raised in March. Till final yr, she was married to the Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
Mr. Trump referred to her because the “V.P. Candidate that no one ever heard of” and denigrated her enterprise credentials.
“Her enterprise was doing surgical procedure on her husband’s pockets!” Mr. Trump wrote in a put up. “She’s extra Liberal than Junior’ by far, not a critical individual, and solely a Pot of Money to assist get her No Probability Candidate on the Poll … ”
Mr. Trump’s barbs signaled a possible change in technique by the previous president, who Democratic allies of President Biden and political observers have for months instructed may gain advantage from having Mr. Kennedy, the liberal scion, within the race.
However a number of current polls have undercut such a state of affairs, together with a survey launched on Wednesday by Quinnipiac College that confirmed that Mr. Kennedy’s supporters had been extra more likely to favor Mr. Trump in a two-way race. Forty-seven % would vote for Mr. Trump, and 29 % would vote for Mr. Biden.
In a hypothetical five-way race that included third-party and different impartial candidates, Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden had been deadlocked at 37 %, with Mr. Kennedy receiving assist from 16 % of registered voters.
Two different current polls — by Marist School and NBC Information — confirmed that Mr. Biden carried out higher in multicandidate races that includes Mr. Kennedy.
