Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has emerged as a wild card in the 2024 election, attracting ideologically diverse supporters, raising huge sums of money, facing legal attacks from Democrats and Donald J. Trump. He was subjected to abusive language from the former president. .
Mr. Kennedy, 70, the son of Robert F. Kennedy and heir to an American political dynasty, had a troubled youth and young adulthood marked by substance abuse. He became an environmental lawyer and is best known for suing polluting companies in an effort to clean up the Hudson Valley watershed.
Over the past decade, he has become a prominent voice in the anti-vaccination movement, spreading falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the risks of childhood vaccinations and other public health measures. This research gave him a major platform during the coronavirus pandemic, when he questioned the safety of COVID-19 vaccines and the official narrative about the origins of the virus.
Kennedy has become the most high-profile independent or third-party candidate in the 2024 race after the centrist group No Labels announced on April 4 that it would not run for president. . Here's what you need to know about him, his supporters, and how the Biden and Trump campaigns are approaching him.
Which political party does RFK Jr. belong to?
Since Mr. Kennedy is running as an independent candidate, he is not affiliated with any established political party and, strictly speaking, is not even a “third party candidate.” In keeping with his family's political heritage, Mr. Kennedy has been a lifelong Democrat, and when he entered the April 2023 campaign, he sought to challenge Mr. Biden for the party's nomination. Six months later, he announced that he would run as an independent, accusing Democrats of unfairly blocking his efforts.
He has been flirting with the Libertarian Party, which is on the ballot in about 34 states. If he joins that ticket, his efforts to get on each state's ballot will be much easier.
His supporters have formed a new party, We the People, to help secure his vote in several states, including California, Delaware, Hawaii, Mississippi and North Carolina. .
Will RFK Jr. be a bigger threat to Biden or Trump?
That this is such a common question, and that both sides are concerned about it, reflects how politically enigmatic Mr. Kennedy is and the range of people drawn to his candidacy. are doing. Still, it is difficult to determine whether Trump or Biden will attract more voters in the general election.
How concerned is the Biden campaign about RFK Jr. or the Trump campaign?
Democrats have been plagued by third-party candidates since 2000, when Green Party candidate Ralph Nader was partly blamed for costing Al Gore the election. In 2016, fellow Green Party member Jill Stein won more than 30,000 votes in Wisconsin, which was more than Trump's margin of victory over Hillary Clinton in the state.
Anxiety among Democrats has been especially acute this year, with polls showing Mr. Trump's enthusiastic support base stronger than Mr. Biden's. Conventional wisdom within the party is that voting for anything other than Biden will benefit Trump, and giving people more choices on the ballot, especially voting with the Kennedy surname, could hurt Biden. There are concerns that the cost may be high. It is in a significant swing state. The party is taking active steps to counter his candidacy.
Where is Kennedy on the ballot?
As of early April, Kennedy was officially on the ballot in one state: Utah. His campaign claims it has enough signatures to appear on ballots in Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Hampshire and North Carolina, but it still has to submit those signatures on applications to state officials. Must be submitted.
His campaign has also collected signatures in most other states. In some places, such as Colorado and Louisiana, the window to do so is narrow and has not yet begun.
Each state has different rules regarding access to the ballot, depending on whether the candidate is an independent or a third-party candidate. Almost all regulations ultimately revolve around signatures. Candidates and parties have a deadline to collect tens of thousands of signatures and submit them for approval by state officials. And signing petitions takes time, effort and money, by most estimates costing tens of millions of dollars, including the legal costs of challenging ballot applications.
Who is his running mate?
Kennedy nominated Nicole Shanahan, a Bay Area lawyer and investor, as his running mate. Shanahan, previously married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, is a political newcomer who has never sought or held public office.
Mr. Shanahan, 38, has a history of political giving, including donating to Mr. Biden's 2020 campaign. And she has already signaled her intention to provide financial support to Mr. Kennedy's campaign, with her giving more than $4.5 million to super PACs supporting Mr. Kennedy, including one member of the PAC. It also includes a large portion of the Super Bowl advertising funds purchased.
Mr. Shanahan aligns with the issues and positions that are important to Mr. Kennedy and have animated his campaign and core supporters, including skepticism about vaccines, concerns about chronic disease, dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party, and environmental stewardship. I've been doing it.
Who is RFK Jr. popular with?
Mr. Kennedy's supporters fall into several overlapping categories. First, there are those who supported his work with Children's Health Defense, an activist group primarily known for spreading anti-vaccine disinformation.
More broadly, he has long been an ardent supporter of the so-called medical freedom movement, which has led to protests (including libertarians and those distrustful of mainstream medicine) through opposition to mandatory vaccinations and public health measures. It depicts a cross-section of political beliefs. .
More recently, he has criticized the government's response to the pandemic, including skepticism about coronavirus vaccines, broadsides against top public health officials like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, and protests over lockdowns and disinformation surveillance. The outspoken criticism is attracting new supporters from within the country. across the political spectrum.
Some of his supporters are longtime Democrats drawn to Kennedy's brilliance. Despite most of his family publicly disavowing his candidacy, Mr. Kennedy has anchored his campaign on nostalgia that creates a myth of family.
Mr. Kennedy also draws support from liberals and independents who widely distrust the federal government. He has expressed his views in line with many Trump supporters, including his anger at isolationist foreign policy and what he calls censorship in news media and tech platforms. . He has become known for his confrontational and provocative interviews on right-wing podcasts, with a kind of iconoclastic anti-establishment vibe that appeals to disaffected Democrats and Republicans. .