Former President Donald Trump revealed his “favorite” opponents amid this year’s presidential election during a campaign speech in Philadelphia on Saturday night.
A Rasmussen Reports poll of 1,000 likely U.S. voters conducted on June 20 and released Friday found Trump leading President Joe Biden by 10 points, 46 percent to 36 percent. Third-party candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. garnered 9 percent, Cornel West 2 percent, and Jill Stein 1 percent, according to the poll, which is an outlier compared to recent polling showing a much closer race. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.
In his speech, Trump touched on the poll results and spoke about third-party candidates and their role in allegedly taking votes from Biden. “Cornel West, he’s one of my favorite candidates,” Trump said Saturday. “I like her also, Jill Stein, I like her very much. You know why? She takes 100 percent from them. He takes 100 percent.”
Given their low polling, Stein and West don’t appear on FiveThirtyEight’s national aggregator poll. As of Sunday, it places Biden ahead of Trump in the national election by 0.3 points, with both candidates garnering over 40 percent of the vote. Third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. holds 9.7 percent of the vote, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Trump: Cornel West, he’s one of my favorite candidates. Cornel West and I like her also, Jill Stein, I like her very much. You know why? She takes 100% from them. He takes 100% pic.twitter.com/l6k4cugvXo
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 22, 2024
“Kennedy probably takes 50-50,” Trump said in his speech, referring to the breakdown of former Trump and Biden voters supporting Kennedy’s candidacy. “But he’s a fake, he’s a fake, he’s a total fake,” he added.
Newsweek reached out to Kennedy for comment via email on Sunday. Newsweek filled out a contact form for West on his website Sunday.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
A segment of Trump’s speech has been circulating on X, formerly Twitter. Several users have brought up the influence third-party voters have in American elections, with many referencing the 2016 presidential election.
Democratic strategist Keith Edwards posted the video and wrote on X on Saturday, “There it is. Donald Trump knows that just like RFK Jr, Jill Stein and Cornel West help him win and help Biden lose.”
Journalist Victoria Brownworth wrote Saturday on X: “As I have reported since 2016, 3rd party votes lost Hillary PA, MI & WI. She lost the election by a mere 77k votes. 3rd party votes in those states totaled 800k. This is the ruse: Trump hopes for a repeat of 2016 in the 3 most critical states, all of which have Trump polling higher.”
Another X user, @TrumpsTaxes, a Democratic Party supporter, wrote on Sunday, “Cornel West voters and Jill Stein voters are being told to their faces that they are nothing more than useful idiots helping Trump’s cause. Let’s hope they will finally get the message.”
Trump won the 2016 election via the Electoral College, but lost the popular vote to Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton. Third-party candidates Jill Stein and Gary Johnson garnered hundreds of thousands of votes in critical swing states, which several political analysts and Democrats believe took votes from Clinton, costing her the election.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Stein’s campaign spokesperson told Newsweek in an email Sunday, “The notion that Democrats and Republicans own everyone’s votes and that Greens supposedly ‘take’ votes from the political establishment is preposterous. No candidate owns your vote, they have to earn your vote.”
The statement continued: “Over 60 percent of voters believe both establishment parties have failed us and we need a new major party. Eighty-three percent of New York Democrats who voted in the 2020 primary didn’t even show up for the 2024 primary. The Democrats have already lost much of their base.
“Our campaign isn’t taking votes away from anyone; voters are taking their own votes away from the zombie parties and looking for better options. This is why over 70 percent of Americans want inclusive debates with all the ballot-qualified candidates so they—the voters—can have a real choice.”
Meanwhile, Trump and Biden are scheduled for the first presidential debate of this election cycle on June 27. No third-party candidate qualified for the debate, which required a minimum of four qualifying national polls showing at least 15 percent support and confirmed ballot access in enough states to potentially win a majority of electoral votes.
Kennedy Jr. and Stein have filed complaints with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) over their exclusion in the June 27 debate hosted by CNN.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.