RFK Jr. reveals VP pick as Democrats try to sideline his campaign

As the 2024 general election gets underway, Democrats have begun to focus on what they see as a key threat to President Joe Biden’s reelection: candidates not named Donald Trump.

For the first time ever, the Democratic National Committee has launched a team solely focused on addressing third-party and independent candidates – specifically Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now running as an independent. He recently earned double-digit poll numbers in a handful of swing states and today announced his running mate, lawyer Nicole Shanahan. 

The DNC effort is expected to include a communications push, opposition research, and legal challenges against any ballot access infractions. And as the centrist group No Labels struggles to find candidates for its bipartisan ticket, Democratic super PACs and think tanks like American Bridge and Third Way have also pivoted their focus to Mr. Kennedy.

In a presidential election likely be won on the margins, the success of Mr. Kennedy, who is polling better than any independent candidate since Ross Perot in 1992, could decide the race. But in the coming months, it’s not the Democrats’ new opposition effort that could be the biggest obstacle to the independent’s rise. Rather, his success could be stymied by a complicated procedural issue that has contributed to America’s dominant two-party structure: ballot access. 

While Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump will be on the ballot in all 50 states as the respective candidates for the Democratic and Republican parties, candidates outside these two groups face stiff filing requirements, with typically thousands of signatures, legal maneuvering, and deadlines that differ by state.

Some states require a presidential candidate to name a running mate before qualifying, one reason Mr. Kennedy announced his vice president in California on Tuesday. Another reason for his timing and choice of Ms. Shanahan, a philanthropist and former wife of a Google co-founder, is the fact that getting on the ballot as an independent can be expensive. Mr. Perot, for example, largely had the most successful independent campaign in modern history because he was a billionaire. 

“This campaign is up against the most powerful financial interests in history,” Mr. Kennedy said while announcing his running mate. “We also face a determined campaign to keep us off the ballot by fair means or foul. Evidently the Democrats have little faith in their candidate’s ability to win the old-fashioned way at the voting booth.” 

RFK Jr. effect on Biden, Trump campaigns

Although Mr. Kennedy is only officially on the ballot in Utah, his campaign says it has also gathered enough signatures in New Hampshire, Hawaii, and Nevada. A pro-Kennedy super PAC, American Values 2024, claims to have enough signatures in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and South Carolina as well. But CBS News reported Monday that Mr. Kennedy’s signatures in Nevada may be ruled invalid because he did not list a vice president on the petition forms, which the Kennedy campaign criticized as collusion between the state’s Democratic secretary of state and the DNC.

“Our strategy will be twofold: We’re going to make sure everyone is playing by the rules, and we’re going to make sure voters are educated,” says DNC spokesperson Matt Corridoni. “Especially when it comes to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. being funded by MAGA donors to be a stalking horse for Donald Trump.” Mr. Corridoni is part of the Democrats’ new Kennedy-focused team alongside veteran Democratic strategist Lis Smith. “We’re not taking anything for granted this election cycle, and that’s why we’re putting wheels in motion now,” he adds. 

Democrats don’t have to look that far back in history for third-party “spoiler” examples. In 2000, Green Party candidate Ralph Nadar won over 97,000 votes in Florida while Democratic candidate Al Gore lost Florida, and thereby the election, by fewer than 550 votes to Republican candidate George W. Bush.

And then there was 2016.

In Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, three “blue wall” states where Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 by slim margins, Jill Stein, whose Green Party typically attracts more left-leaning voters, earned far more votes than Ms. Clinton’s losing margin. And in these same states, Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson earned even more.

“Going back to 2016, and if you’re asking me things I regret, one of them is not taking Jill Stein more seriously,” says Pat Dennis, president of the Democratic opposition research group American Bridge. He says his team has been “working in the background” to make it harder for No Labels to find a candidate.

Of course, it’s impossible to know for sure that Ms. Clinton would have benefited in these critical states had Ms. Stein or Mr. Johnson not been in the race. The same could be true this November. If Democrats are successful in siphoning off support from Mr. Kennedy, it’s far from certain that those voters would all flock to Mr. Biden. Some of these third-party voters could vote for Mr. Trump instead, or the Green Party or Libertarian nominees, or another independent candidate such as Cornel West. Or they could just stay home and not vote at all. 

“The Democrats are paranoid, but the truth is that there is no way to tell where [votes] are going to come from,” says Bernard Tamas, associate professor at Valdosta State University and author of the book “The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties.”

“Someone like Kennedy, there is no way to know who they are going to hurt more.”

Which is partially a factor of Mr. Kennedy’s politics. A member of America’s most famous Democratic family and a former environmental lawyer who covered the dangers of growing mercury levels in fish, Mr. Kennedy has since become a leading voice in what he calls the “vaccine safety” movement, which has only grown louder since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Along with vaccines and public health, his campaign, which has largely communicated to voters through popular podcasts, has also focused on free speech and environmental protection. All of which has helped him build a base of supporters from the left and the right, as American voters face a general election rematch of two of the oldest, most-disliked candidates ever.

“Voters are looking for a fresh alternative, and Mr. Kennedy is providing it,” says Stefanie Spear, press secretary for the Kennedy campaign. “Mr. Kennedy plans to take votes from both President Biden and former President Trump.” 

The “biggest threat” to democracy

Democrats, however, feel strongly that third-party and independent candidates would hurt Mr. Biden more than Mr. Trump this year. That’s a theory some polls support. There’s a reason that Mr. Trump and other Republicans don’t seem as worried about Mr. Kennedy and aren’t building out the same kind of attack as the Democrats, says Jim Kessler, a co-founder of the think tank Third Way.

“The premise begins with the notion that a head-to-head matchup will favor the Democrats,” says Mr. Kessler, who says that polls currently showing Mr. Trump leading Mr. Biden will tighten as Election Day nears. But given that “the hardcore supporters for Trump are more than the hardcore supporters for Biden,” says Mr. Kessler, Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy would “splinter the anti-Trump coalition.”

The anti-Trump Washington class is united, however, on the issue of Mr. Kennedy and other third-party candidates, even if that means stifling outside candidates in a way that’s led the Kennedy campaign to characterize the Democratic Party as the “biggest threat” to democracy in America. Supporters say their voices – and votes – are being suppressed because they support someone outside the two-party system. 

“Should we have more political parties? Almost every political scientist I know would say yes,” says Professor Tamas. “When you have more parties, it forces people to compromise and moderate.”

But this year with Mr. Trump on the ballot, say Democrats, is not the time to experiment.

“I wasn’t waking up in a sweat when Ross Perot was out there,” says Mr. Kessler, who admits, with a laugh, that he voted for independent candidate John Anderson in 1980. “Right now the stakes have never been greater.”