US Presidential Polls 2024: Will Wildcard Candidates Spoil Trump, Biden's Bids?

New Delhi: Recent polls in the United States before the 2024 Presidential elections indicate that voters are reluctant to choose between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. It is increasingly likely that the nation may lean towards an independent candidate once again. Despite the last independent president being George Washington, several polls suggest that citizens are now open to considering independent or third-party campaigns.

However, no independent or third-party candidate has presented a compelling case against Biden and Trump, and none have a significant chance of winning. Nevertheless, analysts suggest that they could disrupt the polls and influence a close election in either direction.

Independent Candidates Pose Threat To Status Quo

Democrats in particular fear a wildcard candidate harming their prospects, recalling how Green Party standard-bearer Jill Stein threw a spanner in the works for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Political consultant Douglas MacKinnon, a White House aide in the Reagan years, believes John F Kennedy's nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, is shaping 2024 into a genuine three-person race, and points doubters to the multitude of pundits who gave Republican Trump no hope in 2016.

Along with the anti-vaccine activist Kennedy, political activist, philosopher Cornel West and Physician Jill Stein are also launching a third party bid for the Presidential elections posing the biggest threat to the status quo.

Even as recent polls conducted by the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the University of Massachusetts Amherst indicate that over half of voters are dissatisfied with the prospect of a rerun of the 2020 election, Biden and Trump have already begun to draw battle lines. In the RealClearPolitics polling averages, Biden and Trump are neck and neck.

Kennedy's Candidature May Harm Biden More Than Trump

However, when Kennedy is included as a candidate, he garners 17 percent of the vote, leading to Trump having a five percentage point advantage. Recent Reuters/Ipsos polls indicated that Kennedy Jr could potentially impact Biden more than Trump in the presidential election. This scenario reflects historical patterns where third-party candidates have influenced the outcomes of US elections, even without winning.

Despite the option for respondents to choose third-party candidates, including Kennedy with 8 percent support, Trump maintained a six-percentage-point lead over Biden in Reuters/Ipsos polling.