Let's look at the numbers here:
Trump vs Biden: 40.7 - 39.0 (Trump + 1.7)
Trump vs Biden vs RFK: 39.4 - 37.5 (Trump + 1.9)
Trump vs Biden vs West: 40.6 - 38.9 (Trump + 1.7)
Trump vs Biden vs RFK vs West: 39.4 - 36.2 (Trump 3.2)
So by the actual numbers, Trump gains 0.2 percent by adding Kennedy into the race. The image here rounds 39.4 "down" to 39 and then rounds 37.5 "up" to 38 to get the 39-38 to suggest that Trump loses support. That makes no sense. If you are going to poll out to the tenth, why would you round up or down to show the difference between the two candidates?
It looks to me that someone is either really stupid or feel that their readership is really stupid. If this was the only portion of this that was illogical I could maybe chalk it up to a mistake. But the author goes to great pains to add his own analysis of how Kennedy pulls a higher number of "Trump demographics" than "Biden demographics" and suggests that this is why Kennedy harms Trump more than Biden. Example:
Despite the Kennedy name and RFK being from the Northeast, the region represents his smallest vote share at 7.2% without West on the ballot. He draws his largest share of support from the South (9.5%), followed by the Midwest (9.3%) and West (9.2%). The result is a net loss in support for Trump.
Great analysis. Except there is no "net loss" in support for Trump. Again. If you want to be an election pundit digging into polling and what it means. Math is certainly something that you should have at least a fundamental understanding of. This is literally simple subtraction. If you cannot subtract in your head, your computer and phone have a calculator you could use.
Update: Just noticed this:
"You could seriously have a situation where Trump wins the popular vote by a point and loses the Electoral College. Why? Because of Macomb County, Michigan. Monroe County, Michigan. You need big margins from those two to offset how much you're gonna get creamed in Wayne County (Michigan)."
All three of these counties are in Michigan. Either Trump wins the popular vote in Michigan or he doesn't. Either way, Michigan does not split up their electoral college votes by county. They only way you win the popular vote and lose the electoral college is by winning "states" by large margin while your opponent wins "states" by small margins. What happens within any individual state is irrelevant to that. Not sure how this guy got his article printed by Real Clear Politics.
Speaking of Michigan:
"As re the "prominent liberals impacted by crime" theme, the leader of the Michigan Democratic Party just got murdered." / X (twitter.com)
One thing is emerging. Most Democrat leaders work/live in Democrat cities and quite a few are seeing the results of their actions
I guess you could call them shovel ready jobs
The last Rasmussen I saw has 30% of democrats voting for Trump.
Think about just how badly Joey Shits-Pants had to fuck things up for THAT to be the case.