Some Democratic strategists have been sounding the alarm about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., fearing that the anti-vaxxer's presidential campaign could take votes away from incumbent President Joe Biden in key swing states that he will need in order to defeat presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump in November.
One of RFK Jr.'s top donors, according to USA Today reporters Erin Mansfield and Rachel Barber, is billionaire Timothy Mellon.
Mellon, they report, has given "millions" to RFK Jr. despite also "bankrolling" Trump's super PAC.
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"It's an unusual arrangement that Democrats have highlighted as they seek to paint RFK Jr. as someone far more closely aligned with the Republican ex-president's Make America Great Again movement than with causes on the left," Mansfield and Barber explain in an article published on May 3. "Many Democrats say that Kennedy, the son of a former Democratic senator and nephew to a former Democratic president, could help elect Trump if some voters cast ballots for him as an alternative to President Joe Biden."
The reporters add, "Trump has also suggested Kennedy helps him."
Mellon is a member of one of the wealthiest families in Pennsylvania history and is, Mansfield and Barber note, "heir to the family fortune of banking and industrial magnate Andrew Mellon."
According to Mansfield and Barber, "Since 2023, the donor has given $20 million to the super PAC that supports Kennedy and $15 million to the super PAC that supports Trump. He backed Trump in 2020. But Mellon doesn't appear to have switched his allegiance."
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The reporters continue, "Instead, over nine months, he gave $5 million in donations that alternate between American Values 2024, which supports Kennedy, and Make America Great Again Inc., which backs Trump."
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Read USA Today's full report at this link.
