Third-Party Operatives Hate What RFK Jr. Is Doing With His Independent Run

The people who have tried to give voters a third option have a lot to say about RFK Jr. None of it’s good.

Election 2024 Kennedy
Democrats attack Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for having donors who support Donald Trump, while Trump attacks Kennedy for being a “radical, left person.” Eric Gay/AP

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is either a dangerous right-wing plant or a dangerous left-wing plant, depending on who is talking on any given day.

Republicans and Democrats are siphoning off some of the money they’ve set aside to attack each other to try and destroy the insurgent Kennedy candidacy, which each says is a threat to their respective cause.

Veterans of presidential politics’ smallest and most quixotic club — the third-party campaign staffer — have never seen anything quite like it. The RFK Jr. campaign lives rent-free in the minds of both major political parties in a way few have ever done. But, perhaps counterintuitively, some third-party vets support the efforts to stomp out the Kennedy embers before they catch real fire.