Robert F. Kennedy Jr, an independent presidential candidate, promised in an election campaign in May 2024 that he would not disrupt the upcoming election. lev Radin/Pacific Press/light rocket/Getty Images CNN& mdash； Before Robert F. Kennedy Jr took the stage at a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa last month, his campaign staff and volunteer team organized hundreds of participants to go through the assembly line of government forms, ID checks and color-coded wristbands. Bureaucratic staff are in sharp contrast with the classic rock music played loudly on the loudspeaker, the crowded bar behind the venue and the happy atmosphere of Midwesterners waiting for Kennedy's speech excitedly. But paperwork is an essential part of the significance of this gathering. The campaign team of independent candidates plans to use this event to qualify for the presidential election in Iowa through a unique procedure, which requires hundreds of registered voters in Iowa to participate in a procedure similar to the general assembly and formally nominate Kennedy to appear on the state's ballot.
The campaign in Iowa is part of the Kennedy campaign's push to vote in all 50 states and Washington, DC. Since the effort began last year, it has experienced setbacks and won more and more victories, taking advantage of voters' interest in the substitutes of the presumed nominees of major political parties (President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump).
Dan Tvermeyer, a Kennedy supporter from Des Moines, said, "People on both sides are awake and want a choice." . "They don't want to choose the lesser of two evils. They wanted hope, and he sent a message of hope. "
After his speech in Iowa, Kennedy redoubled his efforts to achieve his bold goal of voting in 50 States, and said that the campaign would achieve a comprehensive vote in the next few months.
Kennedy told reporters: "By the end of July, we will vote in every state." .
The success of Kennedy's task of obtaining votes may have a great impact on the competitive environment before the presidential election. The national poll of registered voters released by NPR/PBS/Marist College earlier this month showed that in the hypothetical five-party confrontation between Biden, Trump, Kennedy, independent candidate Cornel West and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Kennedy won 11% support. Biden and Trump both received 42% support in the same poll.
It is unclear whether Kennedy will get more support from Biden or Trump, but in a close election, a third-party candidate with a lot of support may upset the balance of the election map in an unknown way. In the 2020 general election, Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin were all decided by less than 1 percentage point.
Drew Dieter, a 37-year-old Kennedy supporter from Golden Valley, Minnesota, said he thought the environment was ripe for people like Kennedy to have a major impact.
"I don't think we have had two more unpopular candidates like Trump and Biden, so I think the road for third-party candidates to succeed this time is open."
Kennedy's vote push may also greatly help to prove the legitimacy of his rebellious third-party campaign in the eyes of voters who are curious about his information but worried about his election.
Stephanie Westendorf, a 47-year-old plumber from Dayton, Ohio, voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, but also voted for the Democratic Party in previous elections. She said that she was considering voting for Kennedy because of his background in environmental advocacy and because "he is not a politician." Nevertheless, she is inclined to support Trump in November because she thinks Kennedy is not eligible to vote in her state.
"I like Kennedy, but, you know, he won't be on the ballot in Ohio," Westendorf said.
Kennedy officially voted in five States: Michigan, Utah, Hawaii, Delaware and California. The campaign team said that they had collected enough signatures to allow Kennedy to vote in two other battlefields-North Carolina and Nevada, and Idaho, Nebraska and Iowa.
The campaign uses various methods to find the simplest way to deal with the usually completely different and complicated process, so as to meet the different voting qualification standards of each state. Volunteers collect signatures outside sports events, on university campuses, festivals and state fairs, and all over the country. The campaign team even drafted the exposure of some more prominent political events: volunteers lobbied voters at the polling station on the day of the presidential primary in Granite State in January, and collected enough signatures to appear on the votes in New Hampshire.
A campaign official told CNN that the campaign usually aims to collect at least 60% more signatures than needed in each state to prevent invalid signatures from damaging Kennedy's petition.
Kennedy also contacted some small parties with voting qualifications in some states to completely avoid the signature collection process, making Kennedy and some marginal political groups strange strange bedfellows. He will appear on the ballot of Michigan Natural Law Party, which is famous for advocating transcendental meditation. In California, Kennedy will thank the American Independence Party (AIP) on the ballot, which was established in the 1960s to promote the third party election of the segregationist Alabama Governor george wallace in 1968.
In a video statement announcing his eligibility to vote in California, Kennedy condemned Wallace's views and said that the party "has been reborn as a party that represents sympathy, unity, idealism and common sense, not prejudice and hatred."
Sierra Lyons and her mother participated in Kennedy's campaign in Michigan to celebrate his victory in the state. A native of marcom County, she voted for Trump in 2020 and has been volunteering for Kennedy since last year. She said that she was glad to have the opportunity to vote for Kennedy, although Democrats and Republicans criticized Kennedy for undermining Biden or Trump's plan.
"I won't even let myself go there, because I won't vote for Biden or Trump, just because people say Kennedy has little chance of winning," Lyons said.
Barriers to entry
Meurice Fox Kennedy, the campaign manager, and Nick Brana, the polling director of the campaign team, are responsible for supervising the polling infrastructure of the campaign team. They coordinate strategies with staff and volunteers in each state. Trent Pool, a key polling consultant, has been working with the campaign since last year. As the campaign collected signatures in several states, he helped bring professional petition communicators into the campaign. (A new york police spokesman told CNN that Pool was charged with assault in Manhattan last week. Poole's lawyer told CNN that he was "innocent of all charges." )
The team worked closely with Paul Rossi, the chief voting interview lawyer of the campaign team. paul rossi took the lead in filing a lawsuit, challenging the petition submission deadline and signature collection agreement, and coordinating the campaign team to defend the legal challenges of its voting interview.
In Utah, after Kennedy sued the state, the state postponed the petition deadline for independent candidates. In Idaho, after the movement filed a lawsuit questioning its petition deadline and signature collection rules, the state legislature changed its petition collection regulations. In Hawaii, although there were no formal representatives of lawyers attending the hearing, the campaign team successfully defended the challenge of the state Democratic Party to invalidate its voting petition.
Despite these legal victories, Kennedy still faces a long road to a national vote. The movement has not submitted petitions in most states, which will make the movement be examined by more state election officials and external groups on the effectiveness of its petition and signature collection methods. The campaign has faced problems in Nevada, after the Secretary of State's Office admitted that it "provided inaccurate guidance" on whether the Kennedy campaign team needed to announce Kennedy's vice presidential running mate before collecting signatures in the state.
Another campaign official told CNN that the campaign team was waiting to submit petitions in various states. They said that they had collected enough signatures until the deadlines in these states were getting closer and closer, hoping to reduce the chances of Democrats and Republicans filing legal challenges.
American Values 2024, a super political action committee supporting Kennedy, initially spent eight figures to collect Kennedy's signature in some states earlier this year. The Political Action Committee says it has collected enough signatures for Kennedy to run in Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and South Carolina. A PAC official told CNN that PAC abandoned its plan after the Democratic National Committee submitted a complaint to the Federal Election Commission, accusing PAC of illegally coordinating with the Kennedy campaign to establish a voting operation, even though it cost more than million.
Although most states require candidates to collect less than 10,000 signatures to qualify, some states require candidates to reach a higher threshold. For example, Florida requires candidates to collect more than 145,000 signatures to qualify in the state. But Kennedy was optimistic about reaching the landmark goals in some states with the highest thresholds, such as new york and Texas. The second campaign official told CNN that because the state law requires collecting a large number of signatures in just six weeks, new york, especially Kennedy, is the first choice, and the campaign team believes that the state's qualification is a key step to win votes nationwide. The campaign has volunteers in all 62 counties in new york, who collected the necessary 45,000 signatures before the petition window in the state closed at the end of May.
Matt Lee Golini, a 43-year-old medical worker from Huntington, new york, supported Kennedy. He said that he did not participate in the election in 2020, and he would stay at home again unless Kennedy was eligible to vote in new york.
"If Kennedy wasn't on the ballot, I wouldn't have appeared at the polling station. If he's not on the ballot, I'm not interested at all, "Golini said. "Trump is not an option, and Joe Biden is not an option. So I am happy to stand by and watch. "
Legal battles and the challenge of collecting signatures are equivalent to financial obstacles, which usually prevent independent candidates from getting votes nationwide. Kennedy's campaign ended in March with about million in cash, and the expenditure in March increased to .5 million. However, Nicole Shanahan, Kennedy's independent and wealthy vice presidential candidate, provided a lot of financial support for the campaign. She donated million to the campaign in March. Politicians can provide unlimited funds for their campaigns, which means that Shanahan can continue to provide liquidity as voting activities accelerate.
For Kennedy, winning votes is the first criterion to measure his outsider's ability to campaign. For some voters, their support for Kennedy depends on whether he can compete in every state. Debra chilcote, 57, said she hoped Kennedy would have enough support across the country to vote in every state. But chilcote, a paralegal from Pachaug, new york, said that if he couldn't get votes everywhere, she might vote for Trump, who had always supported him.
"Obviously, I want to put my money in the best place," she said.
Although getting a nationwide vote will mark an important milestone for Kennedy, it is not clear whether their grassroots petition signing activities will help win support for Kennedy in November. Benjamin Novak, a Maryland voter and a senior student at Towson University, signed to help Kennedy vote in Maryland. He said that he hoped Kennedy could get votes from all over the country to benefit those voters who wanted to support him. But he said he planned to vote for Biden in November.
"To be honest, I'm not a big fan of Kennedy, but I think it's important to give third-party candidates a choice, even if they are not your favorite. This sets a good precedent for the future, "Novak said.
But for some voters, the opportunity to vote for a high-profile third-party candidate is an exciting prospect. Donella Pulis, a 52-year-old from Springfield, New Jersey, said that she intended to vote for Kennedy if he qualified in her state. She used to vote for third-party candidates, but usually supported the Democratic Party. She said that she hoped to vote for Kennedy because he shared her values.
"Look, I'm not a rich man. I can't buy influence All I can offer is my vote. I attach great importance to it. My vote will never be wasted, "said Pulis. "I see the road to victory? In an ideal world, maybe. Actually, maybe not. But for me personally, this vote is more about my choice, my action and my civic duty. That's why I want to use it. "