Nobody knows how RFK Jr.'s expected independent run could shake up 2024

According to a campaign fundraising appeal sent out Friday, Robert Kennedy Jr. is expected to announce at a rally Monday in Philadelphia that he will drop out of the Democratic presidential primary contest and make an independent bid for the White House instead. If anybody tells you they know exactly how this will shake up the race, they’re lying.

When Kennedy announced that he was running for the Democratic nomination in April, he immediately put up surprisingly strong polling numbers. In early summer some surveys showed that he had the support of 20% of Democratic voters, and recently he’s been averaging around 15% support. He’s never gotten close to President Joe Biden, who has averaged over 60% support in polls throughout the year, but Kennedy’s numbers have been high enough to raise questions of whether the president has some vulnerability among the Democratic electorate.