RFK Jr. is polling high for an independent. But it may not last

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to announce Monday that he is dropping out of the Democratic presidential primary and will run as an independent. The move would come after Kennedy's calls for a debate with President Joe Biden went nowhere and with Biden continuing to hold a 50-point advantage in primary polling.

But while Kennedy's bid for the Democratic nomination was largely inconsequential, he could play a big role as an independent candidate in determining the winner of the general election.

The polling on an independent run by Kennedy is limited, but the data we do have suggests he would start out as one of the strongest third-party or independent candidates this century.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted this past week among likely voters finds former President Donald Trump at 40%, Biden at 38% and Kennedy at 14% in a hypothetical November 2024 matchup. The 2-point difference between Biden and Trump looks a lot like other surveys we've seen and is well within the margin of error.

But from a historical perspective, the 14% for Kennedy is quite unusual. Consider Gary Johnson, the 2016 Libertarian nominee for president. Like this cycle, the two major party nominees in 2016 (Democrat Hillary Clinton and Trump) were unpopular. Johnson, though, appears to never have hit 14% in any poll when matched up against Clinton and Trump.

Indeed, I can't find any instance of an eventual third-party or independent candidate getting to 14% in a national poll since Ross Perot in the 1996 cycle.

Now, the chance of Kennedy garnering 14% of the vote next November is not high. Non-major-party candidates almost always fade down the stretch.