Robert F Kennedy Jr. announces his running mate

AUSTIN, Texas - Robert F Kennedy Jr. began the next phase in his bid for the presidency by announcing Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.

Democratic analyst Ed Espinoza and Matt Mackowiak, chair of the Travis County GOP, joined FOX 7 Austin's Rebecca Thomas to discuss Kennedy's potential impact on the 2024 election.

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Rebecca Thomas: So Ed, the Kennedy name has a lot of currency in the Democratic Party. Could his campaign potentially snag part of President Biden's base?

Ed Espinoza: Well, I think that's the intent of his candidacy. Robert F Kennedy is not running to be president and he will not be president. He's running to erode some of Biden's base of support. And that's evidenced completely by the fact that the super PAC supporting Robert F Kennedy is funded by wealthy Republican donors, Republican donors that have given more than $20 million to that super PAC in order to get Robert F Kennedy on the ballot so that he can siphon off votes away from Biden. This is a Donald Trump supporter doing these things. And look at the states where he's on the ballot. Nevada. Arizona. Georgia. Michigan. That's what they're aiming to do, is to get on the ballot in those states that were decided by, in some cases, a point or less to try and benefit Donald Trump. He's not running to be president. Robert F Kennedy is running for Donald Trump to be president.

Rebecca Thomas: Matt, RFK Jr. has alienated traditional Democrats with some of his views, especially concerning vaccines. So does Trump stand to lose more voters from his run? 

Matt Mackowiak: Yeah. What we've seen in the polling and this is, you know, hard to be real confident about the polling of third party candidates depends on ballot access, how much money you raise, what two states you target, whether you run a national campaign. But so far, the polling has shown that, as Ed points out, that RFK is taking more from Biden than he is from Trump, but he is taking from both. I agree with some of what Ed said. There's I think one key thing I think that's that's maybe something I disagree with him on. And that is RFK made his vice presidential choice yesterday. And he chose a very liberal person. He didn't choose a, quote, Republican. He chose a, the former, I guess, the ex-wife of the former, one of the two co-founders of Google, who was a major donor to the Los Angeles district attorney, George Gascon, who was a Soros-backed far-left prosecutor. And presumably, this this two VP cannon, Nicole Shanahan, will likely be injecting Rpcs campaign and or his superPAC with perhaps tens of millions of dollars. And that, of course, is not Republican money. So, look, he's a third party candidate. He may go for the libertarian nomination to get 50 state ballot access. We'll have to see if that happens. He could be a spoiler and he could be a factor. My guess is he will not be the reason one person wins or loses.

Rebecca Thomas: Ed, what is your take on on RFK pick for VP? 

Ed Espinoza: Well, look, I think it largely doesn't matter. Most people don't know who she is. And really, VP has helped to balance out a ticket when someone knows something about the person running at the top of the ticket. But that's just not the case here. Look, the only reason we're having this conversation, the only reason he is making news, is because wealthy Republican donors gave $20 million to a super PAC to make his campaign just a tiny bit viable, and that's how he got here. He could have had anybody as his vice presidential pick, and it wouldn't have mattered. He'd still be here today because Timothy Mellon and other big donors, Republican donors giving all of this money to a super PAC to support our Robert F Kennedy Jr. 

Rebecca Thomas: All right. We're just about out of time. Matt, your final thought on RFK is the campaign?

Matt Mackowiak: Yeah. Look, he's one of the more interesting third party candidates we've had in the modern era. Given his name, given his profile, given his ability to earn media. Look, he would have run as a Democrat, but the Democrats refused to allow him to appear on the ballot. And in any case, they totally denied him the ability to debate. And so what choice did he have except to run third party? He wanted to run as a Democrat. He wanted to challenge Biden. So I think the Democrats kind of reap what they showed on that. But we're going to see whether he raises money, whether he gets free state ballot access, what his message is and whether he can get in televised debates if there are any televised debates this fall.

Rebecca Thomas: All right, Matt, Ed, thank you both for sharing your perspectives with us tonight.