Cover photo – RFK Jr. speaks to a crowd in Holbrook in May (Credit – Matt Meduri)
In addition to the 2024 presidential contest entering waters not chartered since 1968, and even then there are still nuances to this year’s content, the race has been invariably shaken up by the candidacy of Independent Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Initially campaigning in the Democratic primaries against President Joe Biden (D-DE), RFK abandoned the effort in October to take on a monumental challenge: running a worthwhile third-party campaign.
RFK has staked his candidacy on dysfunction and schisms within both national parties, record-low unpopularity of the two frontrunning candidates, and a system he says is “broken” and does represent the majority of Americans.
The last notable third-party presidential candidate to make a significant impact on the race was Ross Perot (I-TX) in the 1992 election, in which he took almost 19% of the popular vote, but just fourteen counties of the three-thousand-plus across the country – although he tied with President George H. W. Bush (R-TX) in Morris County, Kansas. Perot won no states and thus, took no Electoral College votes.
Arguably the most difficult challenge for RFK is not just winning the presidential election, but obtaining ballot access in enough states and galvanizing considerable grassroots support nationwide to even have a chance to contend against Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA) and former President Donald Trump (R-FL).
Kennedy, his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, and campaign and ballot access leaders hosted a roundtable with over two hundred media representatives last week to provide crucial updates on the task.
Kennedy opened the meeting by announcing that the campaign has obtained the sufficient number of signatures in eight more states: Alabama (9 electoral votes), Arkansas (6), Kansas (6), Massachusetts (11), Montana (4), North Dakota (3), Vermont (3), and Virginia (13). The achievement came just two days after the campaign obtained enough signatures for ballot access in nine other states: Connecticut (7), Idaho (4), Iowa (6), Maine (4 split), Missouri (10), Ohio (17), Oregon (8), Pennsylvania (19), and West Virginia (4).
The most recent ballot access blitz of seventeen states collectively represents 134 electoral votes. 270 are needed to win the presidency. As of press time, RFK has either submitted the required number of signatures or has been certified on the ballot in forty-five states, collectively worth 503 electoral votes. Ballot access is in progress for the remaining five states and the District of Columbia (3): Arizona (11), Kentucky (8), Mississippi (6), Rhode Island (4), and Wyoming (3).
“We have an army of over 100,000 volunteers; it’s a monumental effort,” Kennedy told the press. “The rules that govern ballot access in the fifty states are draconian and byzantine. They were written by the two major parties to prevent competition and to make it insurmountable for an Independent candidate for the presidency to even get their name on the ballot.”
Kennedy also laid blame on the mass media for essentially setting a narrative that not only could he not win the election outright, but that obtaining sweeping ballot access was not feasible.
“Virtually all major press outlets have been predicting that this could not be done, that our campaign should never be taken seriously,” said Kennedy. “We’ve been able to overcome impossible odds.”
Kennedy spoke highly of the volunteers he has met across the country, retelling a story of a “giant” man in Nevada who told Kennedy that he had lost over twenty pounds collecting signatures for the campaign in 117-degree heat. Kennedy also mentioned the volunteers in Maine, who brought signatures to all four hundred town clerks across the state to certify his access in the Pine Tree State.
Kennedy also touted that the campaign has received over one million signatures nationwide.
“No other presidential candidate in history has gotten one million signatures,” said Kennedy. He compared the effort to that of Ross Perot, who received 340,000 signatures. However, Kennedy lamented that due to press coverage of the Perot campaign, many voters did not back him because they did not believe he had a realistic shot at becoming president.
“Perot won 19% of the vote, but the average response among voters in exit polls showed 36% of support for him,” said Kennedy. “If those people voted for him, he would have won, but the press told them it was a lost cause and a wasted vote.”
Kennedy also remarked that Perot ran at a time when the press was not “particularly partisan,” and that Perot was welcomed on all networks, a stark contrast to his reception in the 2024 race.
“ABC has never allowed me on for a single interview. We’ve asked again and again, they won’t even allow a taped interview,” Kennedy told the press. “I’ve done one live interview and two taped interviews in eighteen months. These platforms are, every day, telling people that I can’t win.”
However, Kennedy touted his campaign’s accomplishments, saying that, in addition the one million-plus signatures received, the campaign has raised $52 million, brought in 115,000 volunteers, has received over one million real debate views – in which Kennedy responded to the live CNN debate between Trump and Biden to which he was not invited – and has a “perfect record of defeating legal challenges” facing his ballot access.
Paul Rossi, campaign senior legal counsel, said that Perot is what started the effort between the parties to block Independents from achieving substantial ballot access.
“Because Ross Perot was successful, they thought they could impose rules to prevent this from ever happening again,” said Rossi. “They were right up until today.”
Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, said that the campaign has seen “significant handicaps,” ranging from ballot access to debate access.
“I had no idea how difficult it is for Independent candidates to access ballots in this country. I always assumed that democracy encouraged as many qualified voices to speak,” said Shanahan. “Ballot access has given us all an opportunity to come together and wear multiple hats. There are so many nuanced, arbitrary rules. Every single state is different, every piece of paperwork is different.”
Nick Brana, Senior Advisor and Ballot Access Director, called the ballot access quest a “labyrinth laced with a minefield.”
“The secretaries of state don’t even know their own rules, some will mislead you, some will produce forms days or hours before the submission deadline,” said Brana. “The amount of challenges is truly incredible; it was not meant to be done.”
When The Messenger asked what state has proven the most difficult in ballot access, Brana and company agreed on one state in particular: New York. Brana called ballot access in New York “impossible.”
“It has just one of the shortest windows in the country – six weeks – with a 45,000 signature requirement,” said Brana. “There are a number of different provisions, sheets, and forms, and any circulator who signs for a different presidential candidate invalidates the prior signature.” Brana likened the mutual exclusivity of signatures as an “incentive” for one campaign to “sabotage” another.
Brana also said that validating signatures becomes complicated when verifying identities down to the villages and hamlets of residences, a unique aspect of multi-layered government in New York.
Despite the challenges, the campaign has received more than double the amount of required signatures for ballot access in the Empire State.
As of Monday night, the campaign plans to appeal an Albany County judge’s ruling that would bar Kennedy from the ballot in New York on grounds that he misrepresented his residency.
“The ruling came in spite of the fact that Kennedy is registered to vote in New York, New York has been his primary residence since 1964, he pays taxes in New York, he has a New York driver’s license, his legal license and law practice is in New York, and his falconry license and other recreational licenses are in New York,” said the Kennedy campaign in a statement.
Amaryllis Kennedy, the campaign manager for her father-in-law, said that the ballot access quest was an unclimbable “glass mountain.”
“Here we are at the top of it,” said Kennedy, adding that other issues are considered to be “glass mountains” as well.
“Healing national division, restoring long-term hope in our economy when seventy-plus cents of every dollar is going to paying off interest, improving our health and education systems, and increasing life expectancy. Those might be said to be glass mountains, but having scaled one together, we can do it again,” said Kennedy.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., offered a sobering view of current American politics.
“Crises have always brought out the best in America: 9/11, the Boston bombings, hurricanes, or tornadoes: they’ve brought Americans together,” said Kennedy. “When we’re together, we can accomplish anything. We are deliberately being kept divided. We have extraordinary resiliency, but a house divided against itself cannot stand. As long as we’re at each other’s throats, we’re not going to be able to accomplish anything and our country will continue to spiral in decline.
The ballot access quest for the RFK campaign is coming to a close, with deadlines for the five remaining states and Washington, D.C., approaching in the coming weeks or at the beginning of September.
