Democrat party against RFKjr

He's a democrat. He can run under whatever banner he wants, but being a democrat is practically in his DNA.

I don't blame him though. Were I still a democrat leaning voter, I'd be embarrassed to admit it, too.

I like RFK Jr, but he is a democrat. Clearly, he is playing the middle.. but he will syphon votes from somebody.

Nope. He’ll get the voters who would not have voted for either Biden or Trump. So he gets voters that would not have affected the current stand off.

My sense is that he would get other voters as well. I think he'd take more votes away from Biden, since he truly is a democrat. There have got to be a lot of the more center-left dems who don't really like Biden or at the very least recognize he's not mentally capable of fulfilling the duties of the office. Those dems would, I think, prefer RFK Jr. over Trump.

He'd likely get some Trump voters who might like Trump's ideas, but feel another Trump administration would be too divisive for the country. Also perhaps a few who are just center-right who would vote for Trump if there weren't another more moderate alternative in the form of RFK Jr.

It's almost like they didn't want *ANY* other candidate to have a chance against Demented Joe. It could have been anyone with the good sense to run against Demented Joe. RFK Jr. just happens to be the one who decided that Demented Joe is too dangerous to leave unattended in the oval office, so he bears the brunt of these entirely un-democratic rule changes.

"To be honest, this has nothing to do with RFK."

Since that's what I said, I'm glad to see we agree.

"The first primary isn't Iowa anymore. It's going to be South Carolina."

Yes, I'm aware of this. (it has been in the news...!)

For it not being about RFK Jr., you did seem to spend a lot of time in your reply talking about what it would take for him to unseat Demented Joe.

"The whole thing is nonsense."

Again, we agree.

Well, I think we've made some progress here today. Thanks whistlelock. I know we don't always (or often... or usually...) agree, but it does show that if two people of differing views just use some common sense, they can sometimes find some common ground.

"If you add up all the superdelegates that they control and all of the automatic delegates that just go to the party and to the president, I would have to win almost 80% of all of the states in order to beat President Biden, even if he only wins 20%," Kennedy said. "We live at a time in American history when a lot of Americans think that democracy is broken, that the political system is rigged, and that there's not really any democracy. Unfortunately, the DNC is taking a lot of steps that confirm that outlook."

Yeah, super delegates. That's been a thing since 1972. It's not new.

What is new; the super delegates don't vote until the second round. Which only happens if there isn't a majority winner in the 1st round. Under the old rules, the super delegates could vote in the 1st round.

So, if RFK had 80% of the primary delegates, he'd win the first round. If he had 60% he'd win the first round. If he had 52% he'd win the first round. If he had 50%+1 he'd win in the first round.

The super delegates wouldn't get the chance to vote. So, this 80% claim is trash.

https://ballotpedia.org/Democratic_delegate_rules,_2024

From Ballotpedia:

In 2024, there are an estimated 4,514 delegates: 3,770 pledged delegates and 744 automatic delegates—more commonly known as superdelegates.[1]

To win the Democratic nomination, a presidential candidate needs to receive support from a majority of the pledged delegates on the first ballot: an estimated 1,886 pledged delegates.[2][1]

If the convention is contested and goes to a second ballot or more, automatic delegates—commonly referred to as superdelegates—are able to vote and a candidate must receive majority support from all delegates—2,258 votes. Previously, superdelegates were able to vote on the first ballot. This rule changed after the 2016 presidential election, when the Unity Reform Commission proposed several ways to reduce the number and power of superdelegates.[3][4] To learn more about the 2020 Democratic National Convention, click here.