WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 20: Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listens before the start of a hearing with the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Capitol Hill on July 20, 2023 in Washington, DC. Members of the committee held the hearing to discuss instances of the U.S. government's alleged censoring of citizens, political figures and journalists. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
This week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that he had taken the official step of filing to form a new political party, We the People Party, in five states (California, Delaware, Hawaii, Mississippi and North Carolina) and the Texas Independent Party in Texas.
The campaign has taken the step because getting a political party on the presidential ballot will require 330,000 fewer signatures across the six states than would be required if Kennedy maintained his independent status, calling it “the most direct path to ballot access in those states,” his campaign said in a statement.
For his new party to gain ballot access in California, Kennedy will need 75,000 signatures. He will need 770 in Delaware, 13,865 in North Carolina, 862 in Hawaii, and 81,000 in Texas.
In addition to the states where Kennedy is trying to gain ballot access via his new party, he is also pursuing access in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada and New York. As of now, only Utah has guaranteed him a spot on the ballot after he acquired the necessary 1,000 signatures.
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Kennedy began his campaign last April by running as a Democrat, the traditional party affiliation of his family. But after garnering most of his following from far-right circles by pushing conspiracies on everything from Covid-19 to the truth about the death of his father, former U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy Sr., he abandoned the Democratic party in favor of becoming an independent.
He has criticized both parties for being rife with corruption. He called the two-party system as a whole for making democracy feel like “a sort of a film set,” where “none of us really feel like we have any impact about what the government does.”
In a tight presidential race, a third-party candidate could disrupt the race, potentially drawing votes from either side’s constituents.
The Common Sense PAC, a political super PAC supporting Kennedy’s bid for president, recently tweeted a video of Kennedy on Fox breaking down his road to the White House.
“I only need 4.5% of people planning to Vote for Biden or Trump to vote for me,” he said.
Most of the money for Kennedy’s PAC came from a single right-wing billionaire, leading many Democrats to believe that he is a pawn for Republicans.
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