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By Kate Plummer
Senior US News Reporter
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Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s popularity has plummeted in the past year, polls have shown.
According to polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight, Kennedy, the son of former Senator Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, has seen his favorability rating decline from 42.1 percent on June 4, 2023, to 35.3 percent on June 4, 2024. It's a change from a net score of +15.5 percent favorable to -6.6 percent unfavorable in 12 months.
Similar data from The Hill showed that on June 4, 2023, Kennedy had a 42.3 percent favorability rating and a 25.2 percent unfavorability rating. One year later, 48.4 percent of people rated him as unfavorable while 33.4 percent rated him favorably.
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Newsweek contacted representatives for Kennedy by email for comment.
The data comes after Kennedy, a 70-year-old attorney, sought to challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination but withdrew from the race and declared himself an independent candidate last October.
He has a strong anti-vaccine stance and reported support of conspiracy theories, such as the unsubstantiated beliefs that COVID-19 targets certain races, the 2004 presidential election was stolen by voter fraud, and a link between mass shootings and prescription drugs.
Some experts have said that his candidacy could harm Biden and former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, when voters head to the polls.
Speaking at the cryptocurrency conference Consensus 2024 in Austin, Texas, last week, Kennedy said that the political system had been weaponized against him.
"The Democratic Party is trying to eliminate me by making it impossible for me to get on all the ballots. I don't think that's democratic," he said. "I grew up in the Democratic Party, and I was trying to get as many Americans as possible enfranchised to vote, get them legally to vote. And now the Democratic Party is trying to disenfranchise voters and try to push candidates off with legal actions in the courtroom rather than the ballot box.
"Let's say they succeed in doing that. What kind of country are we left with? We're left with a country where half the people are deeply embittered and angry and feeling like they've been screwed. I don't think that's good for our country."
Election Day is November 5.
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