The Ex-Bernie Sanders Pollster Raising Alarms About R.F.K. Jr.’s Appeal Among Latinos and Young Voters

Happy Friday! Today, we’re looking at younger voters and other demographic groups who are generally crucial for Democratic victories in presidential elections — but who may back other candidates or sit out this year’s election in greater numbers than usual. I’ve asked my colleague Shane Goldmacher to kick things off. — Jess Bidgood

Like many of his fellow Democrats, Ben Tulchin, a former pollster for Senator Bernie Sanders, is worried about President Biden’s chances against Donald Trump this fall. And like many Democrats, he is nervous about Biden’s current level of support among some core Democratic constituencies.

But Tulchin is warning any Democrat who will listen about one particular thing they might not have thought of: the possibility that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will wind up siphoning off two traditionally Democratic voting groups — Latinos and younger voters — this fall.

He’s so worried that he paid for his own polling in two key battlegrounds, Arizona and Pennsylvania, which showed Kennedy drawing some of those voters away from Biden. He recently presented those findings to a consortium of Democratic groups and super PACs.

“I’m raising the alarm,” Tulchin said in an interview.

Tulchin’s concern is basically this: Latinos and younger voters, who flocked to Sanders, an independent, in the 2020 Democratic primary, were never that into Biden in the first place. Sure, they sided strongly with Biden in the general election. But, as Tulchin put it, “they weren’t enthused.”

Now he sees Kennedy, a former Democrat now running as an independent, as offering those voters a viable alternative outlet that is short of leaping all the way to Trump.