The controversy over Robert F Kennedy Jr’s exploits with a dead bear cub is just the latest bizarre twist to hit his presidential campaign and see him become a “laughingstock”, political experts said, but a laughingstock who, against all odds, could still have a serious impact on the election.
Kennedy, the scion of the Democratic political family who is running as an independent candidate, was already known for unusual beliefs and actions before last week. His long-shot campaign for president had survived Kennedy’s claim that part of his brain was eaten by a worm, his longtime anti-vaccine activism, and his recent denials that he had eaten a dog.
But the latest controversy to emerge around Kennedy might be the strange straw that broke the camel’s back. On 4 August it emerged that Kennedy had found a dead bear cub on the side of the road, loaded it in the back of his car, taken a photo with the corpse, gone to do some falconing, had a steak dinner, then staged the decomposing bear’s death to look like a bicycle hit-and-run incident in a local park before heading to the airport.
“As soon as you start becoming a laughingstock in the public mind, you know you’re in trouble,” said Marjorie Hershey, professor emeritus of political science at Indiana University Bloomington. “And when the two most prominent things people think about when they think of RFK Jr is brain worms and dead bear cubs, you’re definitely in trouble.”
Kennedy revealed the bear cub incident in an interview with Roseanne Barr, in an apparent attempt to get ahead of an article in the New Yorker. But it’s not clear his explanation of why he drove around with a dead bear in the trunk of his car helped his cause. Kennedy who was 60 years old at the time, told Barr that the bicycle accident aspect of the incident was done because he thought it would be “amusing”, but few seem to agree.
It was especially unhelpful for Kennedy given his polls have been dropping for some time. Earlier in the year Kennedy was averaging about 10% of the national vote – currently he averages about half that. While Kennedy, as an independent candidate, was always very, very unlikely to win the election outright, he was hoping for a strong performance – something that now seems unlikely.
Hershey said, however, that given the majority of Americans are not engaged in day-to-day politics, Kennedy’s early strong performance was always something of a mirage.
“So I’m sure that there was a certain proportion of people who just heard the name Robert F Kennedy Jr, and attributed to him some of the qualities that they remembered in his father, or who just have a certain kind of shine to the Kennedy name,” she said.
“And so virtually anything they hear about him is likely to tarnish that initial feeling as people get more information.”
While the bear cub incident was unsavory, there have been weightier complaints against Kennedy. In July a former babysitter for Kennedy told Vanity Fair that Kennedy assaulted her at his home in 1998. Kennedy responded by stating: “I am not a church boy.”
Last year he was forced to apologize after he claimed that Covid-19 was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people”, while Kennedy has claimed that wifi causes “leaky brain” and has linked antidepressants to school shootings. In 2023 he claimed that chemicals in water were making children transgender, while Kennedy has longstanding, and wrong, beliefs about apparently any and all vaccines.
The video of Kennedy talking about how he hauled a bear carcass into the back of his car, then later staged a scene which attempted to make it look like the bear had been killed by a cyclist, might not actually be the most damaging footage of Kennedy to have emerged in the past month.
A video posted online on 16 July showed a phone call between Trump and Kennedy where the former president appeared to offer an opportunity for the pair to work together in the future. The video came after reports – denied by Kennedy – that he might drop out and endorse Trump.
“Part of perhaps why we’re seeing his numbers shrink is because of his credibility issues. This bizarre story about the bear, coupled with this video a few weeks ago speaks directly to the candidate’s credibility, and some voters may simply have a second look. His supporters may become disillusioned and decide not to participate at all,” said Emmitt Riley, a professor of politics and African and African American studies at Sewanee University and the chair of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.
Trump’s outreach suggests that he is fearful of Kennedy’s quixotic campaign. Kennedy’s aggressive attitude towards the border crisis, and promises to take on the Washington elite are reminiscent of some of Trump’s pledges, means they are fishing in at least parts of the same pool.
“I see him more as a threat to Donald Trump, given that his supporters are looking for more of an ‘alternative’. I do not see voters who even at this stage would vote for RFK remotely even considering supporting Kamala Harris,” Riley said.
But despite Kennedy’s past as an anti-vaccine campaigner who drove around with a dead animal in his car, and his present as an oddity, a punchline and someone sinking in the polls, Riley said he could still have an impact on the election – given how close the vote is expected to be in key swing states.
“When we think about the margins that states like Michigan, Wisconsin, any of those midwestern states were decided in the last election, every single vote is going to count,” Riley said.
“And so if it comes down to 30,000 votes, if it comes down to 5,000 votes, a small portion there [for Kennedy] would likely have a major impact on either Donald Trump’s ability to get to 270 or Kamala Harris’s ability to get to 270. And I think that that is what many people are concerned about.”
