Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will announce his vice presidential pick Tuesday, likely giving a boost to his struggling independent campaign in the coming days as his long-shot bid wrestles with meeting individual state ballot requirements.
Kenndey’s announcement is set to take place in Oakland, California, and will help Kennedy gain access to dozens more state ballots. He is expected to name Democratic donor and ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Nicole Shanahan, as his running mate Tuesday. He had also considered NFL star Aaron Rodgers and former Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.
However, Kennedy’s campaign is also dealing with a crisis in Nevada, a critical battleground state that requires a running mate for a candidate to appear on the ballot.
Earlier this month, his campaign claimed it had more than 15,000 signatures in the Silver State needed to qualify for the ballot. Kennedy, however, filed the paperwork with only his name on the ticket, according to CBS News.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Nevada’s secretary of state’s office for comment but did not receive a response.
Without a vice presidential partner, those signatures could be void, and Kennedy could be forced to collect the 15,000 signatures all over again. Kennedy’s campaign lambasted the requirement, calling the possibility that the campaign’s signatures could be invalidated “the epitome of corruption.”
“After successfully collecting all of the signatures we need in Nevada, the DNC Goon Squad and their lackeys in the Nevada Secretary of State’s office are outright inventing a new requirement for the petition with zero legal basis,” said Kennedy campaign ballot access attorney Paul Rossi. “The Nevada statute does not require the VP on the petition. The petition does not even have a field for a VP on it. The state confirmed that the petition does not require a VP in writing on Nov. 14. The state approved our petition without a VP on it in writing on Jan. 9.”
“This assault on the democratic rights of millions of Americans in Nevada, and their freedom to vote for an independent candidate, embodies the corruption and depravity that has come to characterize the Democratic Party,” Rossi said.
Kennedy first qualified for a state ballot in Utah in early January, which the campaign told the Washington Examiner was for strategic reasons.
“Running an independent campaign comes with the difficult task of getting on each state’s ballot. We broke down our states into four different tiers,” said Kennedy spokeswoman Stefanie Spear at the time. The first tier, which Utah is in, allows for the earliest petitioning, and “you didn’t need any electors and didn’t need to have your [vice president].”
According to a RealClearPolitics poll average, Kennedy garners 12.3% in a three-way matchup with President Joe Biden, at 35.3%, and former President Donald Trump, at 40.7%.
Biden’s reelection campaign supporters and the Democratic National Committee have gone on the offense against Kennedy and other independent or third-party candidate spoilers by creating the Clear Choice super PAC and a DNC team dedicated to handling this problem with staff such as Pete Buttigieg alumna and strategist Lis Smith.
The DNC filed an FEC complaint last month against American Values 2024, a super PAC backing Kennedy’s campaign, for accepting $15 million in “unlawful, in-kind” contributions to gain ballot access.
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign is flouting campaign finance law by outsourcing a critical campaign function – the collection of signatures required to appear on the ballot – to an outside Super PAC that is funded by Donald Trump’s top donor this cycle,” said DNC senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill. “This scheme between American Values 2024 and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign requires significant – and plainly illegal – coordination, to the tune of a $15 million in-kind contribution”
Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation who has written about third-party candidates, pointed to recent reports that Kennedy could join the Libertarian Party presidential ticket as a complication to his running mate announcement.
“If he were able to be the Libertarian candidate, he would likely be on all 50 state tickets and that would give him — it’s still extremely long shot, I think virtually impossible — but it would give him a much better chance of being able to draw the votes,” Matthews said.
Shanahan’s history as a Democratic donor may make it harder for Kennedy to become the Libertarian nominee, Matthews said.
“If you’re going to the Libertarians and the Libertarians have some doubts about you, I would think the wise and prudent person would say, I will nominate a solid longtime libertarian to be my vice presidential nominee, and that kind of gives you the ticket boost that you need to get over those reserved reservations and that gets you on virtually every state,” he added.
Independent and third-party campaigns have long fought against the burdensome requirements to gain access to each state’s ballot. The endeavor is financially taxing with billionaire Ross Perot, with his presidential runs in the 1990s, as one of the most successful third-party candidates.
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“My purpose is to win the election,” Kennedy told the New York Times in a recent podcast interview when asked about spoiling the 2024 election.
“I have a fear about both of them winning the election,” Kennedy said of Trump and Biden.