In the emotional life of the liberal mediasphere, there was so little space between the release of the New York Times/Siena poll showing President Joe Biden losing to Donald Trump handily across a range of swing states and the Democratic overperformance in Tuesday’s elections that one of the striking features of the polling passed with relatively little comment. This was the remarkably strong showing for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent candidacy.
When elites pine for a third-party candidate, they usually imagine someone like Michael Bloomberg, a fiscal conservative and social liberal. But the sweet spot for a third-party candidate has always been slightly left of center on economics and moderate to conservative on cultural issues — and that describes Manchin better than it does most American politicians.