Allies of Donald J. Trump are discussing ways to elevate third-party candidates in battleground states to divert votes away from President Biden, along with other covert tactics to diminish Democratic votes.They plan to promote the independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a “champion for choice” to give voters for whom abortion is a top issue — and who also don’t like Mr. Biden — another option on the ballot, according to one person who is involved in the effort and who, like several others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans.Trump allies also plan to amplify the progressive environmental records of Mr. Kennedy and the expected Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, in key states — contrasting their policies against the record-high oil production under Mr. Biden that has disappointed some climate activists.A third parallel effort in Michigan is meant to diminish Democratic turnout in November by amplifying Muslim voters’ concerns about Mr. Biden’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Trump allies are discussing running ads in Dearborn, Mich., and other parts of the state with large Muslim populations that would thank Mr. Biden for standing with Israel, according to three people familiar with the effort, which is expected to be led by an outside group unaffiliated with the Trump campaign.
Many of these third-party-boosting efforts will probably be run out of dark-money entities that are loosely supportive of Mr. Trump. Both the Trump campaign and the main super PAC supporting the former president, MAGA Inc., are already aggressively framing Mr. Kennedy as a far-left radical to draw potential Democratic voters away from Mr. Biden.
@HolisticRuffsRepublican1mo1MO
This is election interference or something.
@WisePunditDemocrat1mo1MO
What it is, is a bunch of super-rich people with a lot of money to burn, willing to use that money to promote candidates they don’t even like (and messages they don’t support) in hopes it will hurt the one candidate they fear the most.
This is an indictment of the whole system.
@MinorityOatmealDemocrat1mo1MO
Lots of billionaire dark money being aimed to promote candidates they don’t like in ways strategically calculated to hurt Biden in swing states.
Funny. I thought I read "election interference" in your comment instead of "winning strategy."
@PollsterGraceDemocrat1mo1MO
Kennedy is no Nader or Perot. He has no path to the presidency. He’s doing this for the money.
A vote for Kennedy is a vote for Trump. It’s also a vote for Project 2025 to
Fill the federal government with loyalists to the right wing billionaires
@XemplaryEqu4lityForward1mo1MO
There is a subset of the US electorate that likes to choose the contrarian choice- as a protest or just because they want to see what would happen. It’s entertainment for them.
I’m here to tell you competence matters. This isn’t the year to protest. The heritage foundation and their Project 2025 is a very real threat to every New Deal program
If you want to keep your Medicare and Social Security and not privatize every federal agency for oligarch profits, take this election seriously.
Kennedys campaign is a hot mess, his staff posts statements they take back hours or days later.
Kennedy has never run for office and never ran any organization of size that has gotten anything done.
@ISIDEWITH1mo1MO
@ISIDEWITH1mo1MO
@ISIDEWITH1mo1MO
@ISIDEWITH1mo1MO
@ISIDEWITH1mo1MO
The dems do this all the time. When my wife (she's a democrat) ran for local office, the democrat running against her had one of his female friends run in the primaries. He even went as far as telling people she was my wife, so they'd vote for the wrong person.
@ActivistHarperSocialist1mo1MO
Groups such as FairVote have been lobbying for ranked choice voting for many years now. RCV completely solves the spoiler problem and even makes general elections unnecessary. Unsurprisingly, the major political parties have been slow to embrace it, and Americans have been distracted by the usual bread and circuses. So…we end up back in our four-year cycle of fretting about spoilers—telling independent candidates not to run and threatening voters that they are “wasting “ their votes if they don’t fall in line behind a candidate they likely never supported. And we call this “democracy?”
RFK Jr. is a lunatic. And Trump, as we already know, is a criminal.
This country has lost its mind.
Steve Bannon: “The path to victory here is clearly maximizing the reach of these left-wing alternatives… No Republican knows that oil production under Biden is higher than ever. But Jill Stein's people do… Stein is furious about the oil drilling. The college kids are furious”
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