When families cross the aisle against presidential candidates

"You can choose your friends, but you sho' can't choose your family," Harper Lee's iconic Atticus Finch famously explained to his son Jem in "To Kill a Mockingbird," the author's 1960 magnum opus. "They're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't." 

Silly or not, acknowledging family can be an awkward, frustrating enterprise in the world of politics. There, the optics of perfection and the messiness of real life are often in direct conflict. While blood may be thicker than water, it is decidedly looser when it comes to elections — particularly during this presidential race, in which familial ties have buckled under instances of high profile partisanship. 

Over the past several months, relatives of Minnesota Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz have publicly embraced Donald Trump, even as Trump's own nephew Fred joined his sister Mary in denouncing their infamous uncle. All the while, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s siblings — scions of perhaps the most iconic political dynasty in American history — have rejected not only their brother's own presidential campaign but also his subsequent endorsement of Trump. 

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Can these family feuds make an electoral difference, or are they simply an opportunity for venting against a relative regardless of the political outcome? 

'A matter of political differences or something deeper'?

Jeff Walz, estranged conservative older brother to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has been publicly critical of his sibling, describing himself on Facebook as "100% opposed to all his ideology," and is now "being wooed by Donald Trump and the MAGA World to commit the ultimate act of political defiance against his liberal brother," The Daily Beast said. 

But that act of defiance would come with a price, as the elder Walz explained, describing himself on Facebook as being "torn between that and just keeping my family out of it." In an interview with News Nation, the conservative brother stressed that he wasn't "campaigning or anything for him or against him or anything like that" — a backtrack attributed, in part, to Walz sister Sandy's urging that he "tone down his divisive attacks on their brother," said The Daily Beast. Although family may have given Jeff his proximal leverage to attack Gov. Walz, it also applied the pressure that lead to his apparent choice to relent.

While it is "certainly newsworthy" to investigate whether a family's opposition to their relative's campaign is "simply a matter of political differences or something deeper," the eagerness with which Donald Trump and his allies have jumped on the Walzes' discord suggest they truly "care about what the family of a candidate thinks," The Arizona Republic said. "Finally, that is."

Trump's effort to "weaponize Walz's family against him may stem from the fact that multiple members of his own family" have been more than willing to denounce their famous relative, MSNBC said. Trump and his camp have previously dismissed criticism from the former president's estranged niece and nephew Mary and Fred: Allegations that Trump had used racial slurs were "fabricated and total fake news of the highest order," and "falsehoods, plain and simple," Trump's campaign said. 

'I think we all love each other'

Perhaps no family better embodies the perils of political divergence than the Kennedy clan, for whom the decision of brother Robert F Kennedy Jr. to suspend his campaign and endorse Trump for president come November amounted to a "betrayal" and a "sad ending to a sad story." 

The former candidate has seemed unbothered by his family's anguish, because, he said at Fox News, he and his siblings were "raised in a milieu where we were encouraged to debate each other and debate ferociously and passionately about things and still love each other."

An admirable sentiment, but does the "live and let live" ethos extend to voters looking at a candidate's family for signs of electoral fortitude or weakness? Not necessarily. For the better part of a decade, six of ultra-rightwing Arizona Republican Congressman Paul Gosar's seven siblings have been publicly urging voters to reject — and in the aftermath of his support for the January 6 insurrection, prosecute — their brother. The appeals did not seem to have "phased Trump, who endorsed Gosar then and now," The Arizona Republic said. In 2022, "Gosar was reelected that year with 94% of the vote."