Davis, CA – I don’t know that we can call this “big news” or not, but the national media got its fixation on the withdrawal of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as an independent candidate who then, much to the consternation of his many siblings, endorsed Republican Donald Trump.
The pundits then go to their boards and attempt to figure out how this will impact the race.
Nate Silver dug into the data and found that at least initially on the surface the exit of RFK, Jr. doesn’t change much.
As Silver writes in his substack column this morning, “Both Trump and Kamala Harris have gained ground versus yesterday’s model run, the last one to include Kennedy. Harris’s polling average has improved from 48.0 percent yesterday to 48.8 percent today (+0.8), while Trump’s has increased from 43.7 to 44.8 (+1.1).”
So a very slight edge to Trump that is being overshadowed at this time by at least a modest convention bounce.
I’m not sure that’s really the best way to look at these things. The real question is how much of an impact will the fact that RFK, Jr. not only dropped out but endorsed Trump. First of all, RFK’s performance was not great – he was pulling in four percent. And second, there is a reason why those folks were not favoring the major party candidates to begin with – and that reason probably was not changed by RFK’s exit strategy.
This is a higher profile example of what plays out in every single race – from President down to dogcatcher. Candidates solicit endorsements, and send out press releases.
But do they really matter anymore at, say the city council level than the Presidential level.
For example, to take a recent example, you have Congressman Mike Thompson endorsing Linda Deos for City Council. Her campaign believes that is an important endorsement – or at least they have signaled the case by listing it as second to the top, and above two current city council members who I might argue are far more important in a city council race.
But at the end of the day, is anyone in Davis going to look at that and go – oh if Mike Thompson endorses, I have to vote for her.
(A disclaimer: I’m using this as an example. I have no dog in this fight. And the Vanguard as a non-profit organization does not and cannot endorse candidates).
If we had the wealth of data we have in the Presidential election, I suspect that the endorsement of anyone is probably not going to impact many people. And moreover, it is just as likely to turn people off as gain votes.
When the outgoing Councilmember Will Arnold endorsed Victor Lagunes this past week, former Supervisor and current political consultant Matt Rexroad posted on Facebook, “I am not sure endorsements mean as much as some people think they mean.”
I think he’s spot on.
First of all, most endorsements are kind of no-brainers.
For instance, when President Joe Biden endorsed his Vice President to succeed him, I think we all collectively “yawned.”
Endorsements definitely don’t matter when they go as expected. Now if Biden sat out and didn’t endorse – that might be newsworthy.
There is a reason why the Democrats this week prominently featured former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger at their convention – he is unusual enough as a cross-party endorsement to make strategists believe he might gain them some key votes in the middle.
But of course at the local level, we don’t have the partisan label to act as a proxy.
To me, I view endorsements less as an actual tool to gain votes and more as an indicator of strength.
I will add one point here before I dive into the endorsement as indicator. I have been pondering some of the weird dynamics of Davis politics, but some of it might come down to the fact that a lot of people vote locally based on who they know and who is their friend rather than on policy grounds.
That might explain why we see very little movement in terms of voter response to issue controversies and the disconnect between how people vote on land use issues and who they support on the city council.
But wouldn’t that also indicate that you might vote for a candidate based on who is endorsing – assuming you know little else? I’m not sure it does.
Back to my main point here.
From the standpoint of an analyst, I look at a few things.
First, who is endorsing which candidate? If you see certain communities backing certain candidates, I think that is helpful to understand where the candidate strength is. It will be interesting in this election for example to see where the slow growth community ends up going given that none of the three candidates fall into the slow growth camp.
Second, I look to see where what I would call the Davis Establishment is going. And usually I look at current elected officials as a guide to that. For all the quirks and twists in Davis politics, the electorate at least on these scores is remarkably consistent – where the establishment goes, usually but not always, the voters will follow suit.
Third, look also at depth of support. If you see a candidate with only 15 endorsements and another candidate with tons of endorsements – that may not influence the outcome so much as reflect both a depth of support and just as importantly, a strong organization that can do the important steps like this.
In the end then, I don’t believe that you will see any endorsement being decisive or even having more than a marginal impact on the race. What I do see is the value of looking at who is endorsing and in what numbers as an overall indicator of candidate strength.
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