News is circulating that a recent poll actually favors pro-crypto candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. over Joe Biden in the upcoming election for the new US president.
The poll, carried out by Economist/YouGov, actually dates back to mid-June, but in subsequent polls from the same source apparently this comparison was no longer made.Â
Summary
US: poll results in favor of pro-crypto presidential candidate Kennedy
However, this is not a real election poll, because it does not detect voting intentions.
Instead, it is a poll that detects the “Favorability” of public figures, in other words, their degree of approval, not necessarily political.
Indeed, in addition to Robert Kennedy Jr. the poll also analyzed figures who have nothing to do with US politics, such as Lionel Messi.
The results for Robert Kennedy Jr. are definitely good, even though the sample consisted of less than 1,500 people, and it is not even certain that everyone knew him.
13% of respondents said they had a very favorable opinion of him, while 36% said they had a fairly favorable opinion. So in total, favorable opinions toward him were 49% of the total respondents.
It is worth noting that 21% responded that they had no opinion about him, so unfavorable opinions were only 30%.
These are indeed very positive numbers for the pro-crypto candidate, but they do not indicate voting intention.
In the most recent Economist/YouGov polls. Robert Kennedy Jr. was not even included in the candidates whose voting intentions were surveyed.
The other Democratic candidates
The most interesting comparison is with Joe Biden, current president and belonging to the same political camp as Kennedy. Indeed, the two are expected to challenge each other in the Democratic Party primaries.
Support for Biden has been declining for some time.
In this poll he got 45% favorable opinion, so still slightly less than Kennedy, but as high as 52% unfavorable opinion, as only 3% of the sample said they had no opinion.
Hence at least at the level of personal opinion Kennedy clearly beats Biden. On the other hand, at the level of electoral consensus, Biden would still appear to be far ahead of Kennedy.
The other strong Democratic candidate is current vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris, but she got only 40% favorable opinion, with 54% unfavorable.
Republican candidates
The leading Republican candidate, Donald Trump, got only 43% favorable opinion, which is less even than Biden.
Despite this, polls to date still show him favored over Biden in terms of the hypothetical election outcome if the two of them were to compete.
By contrast, as many as 53% of the sample expressed an unfavorable opinion of the former president.
His main challenger in the Republican primary appears to be Ron DeSantis, who is endorsed by Elon Musk.Â
DeSantis in this poll got only 41% favorable views, but as many as 13% responded that they do not know him. In fact, the unfavorable are only 46%.
As for former Vice President Mike Pence, against the 11% who did not respond there is only 36% who express favorable opinion, while 53% express unfavorable opinion.
Other celebrities
A few days ago Economist/YouGov also carried out a similar poll concerning non-political celebrities.Â
This other poll showed that 45% of the 1,500 respondents answered that they had a favorable opinion about Elon Musk, which is exactly on par with those who expressed unfavorable opinion (10% did not answer).
As for Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, only 26% expressed a favorable opinion, with 12% not responding and as many as 63% saying they had an unfavorable opinion of him.
Also of interest is the fact that when questioned about Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, 55% said they did not know him, while only 12% said they had a positive opinion of him, compared with 33% who expressed a negative opinion.
Furthermore, this poll, taken about a month after the previous one, returned to measure the “Favorability” of political figures as well, but this time excluding Robert Kennedy Jr.
Biden fell to 42% favorability, which is exactly the same as Trump. DeSantis plummeted to 37%, which is exactly the same as Harris.
US president: the chance of victory of Kennedy Jr. the pro-crypto candidate
To date, the chances of victory for pro-crypto Democratic candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. seem very slim indeed.
He seems to be the leading challenger to Joe Biden, partly because he has recently risen from an estimated 10% voter support to 15%. But with these numbers it appears unlikely that he can beat President Biden in the primary.
Kennedy seems to attract support mainly from the weaker segments of the population, among whom there are historically large numbers of abstentions.
It is worth mentioning that Trump voters on average have a more favorable opinion of Kennedy than of Biden, so in theory if Kennedy wins the primary he could take some votes away from the former president.
Paradoxically, Kennedy is liked less by the most staunch Democrats, the so-called liberals, while he is liked more by conservatives and moderates who often vote Republican.
It should not be forgotten that Biden’s endorsements are declining, so if Kennedy’s continue to increase perhaps he might eventually have some vague chance of beating the current president.
