RFK Jr.'s incredible disappearing campaign

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign is disappearing — both on the trail and in the polls.

The last public event put on by Kennedy was in Freeport, Maine, on July 9. Kennedy has since spoken virtually and appeared at a cryptocurrency conference and events put on by others, but he hasn't been stumping on the campaign trail. (He did speak in person with reporters the day President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.) And it’s been months since his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, has had a public event on the campaign trail.

Kennedy’s public poll numbers are dropping, from around 9% or 10% in national surveys before Biden dropped out, to about half that level now. His last financial report showed the campaign carrying debt equal to more than half of the $5.6 million it had in the bank. On a media call last week, Kennedy said Democrats and Republicans colluded to make it “insurmountable” for an independent to get on the ballot in all 50 states — which he and his campaign had previously talked about as a matter of when, not if.

And when Kennedy has been in the public spotlight of late, it’s been for bad reasons. Vanity Fair in July reported that Kennedy groped a former family babysitter, Eliza Cooney, in 1999. Kennedy sent text messages to Cooney days after the article’s release, apologizing yet saying he had “no memory of the incident.”

Kennedy also revealed, before the publication of a New Yorker profile that included the story, his bizarre decision years ago to pick up a dead bear on a roadside and then stage a bicycle accident scene with it in New York’s Central Park.

Altogether, the campaign is getting worse, not better, for Kennedy, raising questions about just how much impact he’ll have on the 2024