Political analyst Dick Morris told Newsmax on Friday there is a correlation between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announcing a bid to challenge President Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination to when Eugene McCarthy challenged President Lyndon Johnson in 1968.
Johnson was an increasingly unpopular president in 1968 because of the Vietnam War, but few Democrats were willing to oppose the sitting president. But McCarthy, who was an anti-war senator from Minnesota, entered the race. He nearly won the New Hampshire primary, prompting Johnson to withdraw from seeking reelection.
Like Johnson, Morris told "American Agenda," Biden is unpopular, maybe "the weakest incumbent president to seek reelection probably in recent American history." Kennedy, whose father sought the 1968 presidential nomination before he was assassinated after winning the California primary, presents a similar challenge to Biden as McCarthy did to Johnson.
Biden has said he intends to seek reelection but has not formally announced his candidacy. A formal announcement is expected as early as Tuesday.
"I think that [history] is repeating itself now," Morris said. "The reason Biden is going to announce on Tuesday after a year of hesitating and procrastinating is that he hears Kennedy's hoofbeats coming behind him. And he knows from the polling that he is not that strong in a Democratic primary."
Morris cited a McLaughlin poll in March that revealed Biden had just 23% of the vote in a field of potential Democratic primary contenders.
"I think that Biden is very, very, vulnerable," Morris said. "Kennedy poses a very interesting threat because he's a moderate vis-à-vis Biden, he would run to Biden's right. And his big issue is vaccines. And after COVID, that's going to be a huge issue, and I think you can count on Kennedy to lay out [Dr. Anthony] Fauci and to make Biden defend him, and to really go after the mandatory vaccination policy."
Morris said Kennedy also has an appeal to blue-collar workers and Black voters because of the legacy of his father and the Kennedy family. He also said there are many Democratic candidates for 2024 waiting in the wings because they sense Biden's vulnerability.
"You've got to realize that Biden is the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent running for reelection to a Democratic primary in history, perhaps even more vulnerable than Jimmy Carter was in [1980], when Ted Kennedy of the Washington Kennedys almost beat him."
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