In an exclusive interview, Kennedy tells The American Spectator: “We will be announcing 1-2 states each week from here until we qualify for all 50 states and the district of Columbia in July.”
“Democracy!”
That’s the rally cry of today’s liberal Democrats. It’s also the precise opposite of what they actually support for those standing in the way of Democrat President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. These democracy advocates would ban Donald Trump from ballots in every state if they could, or better yet, put him behind bars or use the courts to disqualify him in some other way.
But among their most concerted and disturbing efforts to date — in fact, a day-after-day campaign — has been their shocking effort to block Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from getting on the ballot anywhere from coast to coast. This has been a comprehensive effort, locally, nationally, in every state, and in D.C.
Democracy, democracy, democracy! Well, no, not when it comes to RFK Jr. And to that end, I’m here to report some really bad news for Biden and Democrats: The son of Bobby Kennedy is suddenly getting on ballots, and his success in recent days signals what might well be the start of a surge.
In an especially crucial development last week — largely ignored by the liberal media — Kennedy got on the ballot in the crucial swing state of Michigan. “[T]he campaign has gained ballot access in Michigan,” stated an April 18 press release from the Kennedy campaign. “The party has filed all necessary documents with the state, putting the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket on the ballot in Michigan this fall.”
Democrats badly need to win Michigan once again in November 2024. They’re hoping for it, banking on it, expecting it; that is, unless a third-party candidate, like Kennedy, fouls it up for them.
And what’s so striking about Michigan is that Kennedy isn’t just polling around, say, 13 percent of the vote there. He has polled at double that. A New York Times/Siena poll of six key battlegrounds last October placed Kennedy at 26 percent in Michigan, compared to Biden at 31 percent. Numbers like that jolted the Biden camp, which quickly sprung into attack mode with an anti-Kennedy ad campaign.
“Michigan is proving to be one of the closest swing states of the 2024 presidential election,” says the Kennedy team. “Michigan is where the DNC put up its first attack ads against Kennedy in February, a series of defamatory billboards.”
No surprise there.
And it isn’t just Michigan. Team Kennedy has collected what it calls “all the necessary signatures to be on the ballot” in Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, and North Carolina. Could Kennedy’s presence on the ballot move states like New Hampshire, Nevada, and North Carolina to Trump’s win column?
Either way, Kennedy legitimately seems to be on a roll. We at The American Spectator reached out to him. He told me on Saturday: “We just won our case in Hawaii where [the] DNC challenged our ballot petition. There is nothing for them to challenge in Michigan. We will be announcing 1-2 states each week from here until we qualify for all 50 states and the district of Columbia in July.”
Indeed, shortly after Kennedy shared that with me, his campaign team issued a press release noting that he had just gained ballot access in Hawaii as well.
If the Kennedy campaign indeed announces one to two new states each week until it qualifies for all 50 states, the Democrats and Joe Biden will be foaming at the mouth.
“The DNC is treating me as if I am President Biden’s big challenge,” Kennedy told me. “But his real problem is not RFK, his real problem is four dollar milk, four dollar gas and six dollars for a loaf of bread and the fact that generation of American kids are never going to own their own home. We are the only campaign talking about how to make life affordable, to rebuild our industrial base and to get this generation into homes so that we can preserve America as an ownership society instead of a feudal corporate kleptocracy.”
A kleptocracy might here be defined as one in which Washington’s governing class talks of “democracy” but maneuvers from state to state to keep opponents off the ballots. You might not technically call that rigging an election, but it certainly undermines the democratic process and voters’ choices.
What especially concerns the Biden folks is that Kennedy does very well among voters under the age of 35, where he leads both Biden and Trump in a recent Quinnipiac poll. Moreover, another Quinnipiac poll shows Kennedy in a three-way tie with Biden and Trump among Latinos. That could be a doubly big blow to Biden. At the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, three weeks ago, I met with an expert on the Latino vote who projects that Donald Trump could get anywhere from 30–40 percent of that vote. If Kennedy cuts into that vote for Biden still more so, then Biden is in huge trouble with Latinos. He might lose them outright.
And then there are independents, with whom RFK Jr. does especially well. Kennedy’s campaign cites a Quinnipiac poll showing that he leads both Biden and Trump among independents. And yes, that’s bad news for Donald Trump, too.
Yes, yes, I know — there remains debate about whether RFK Jr.’s entrance into the race takes more votes from Biden or Trump. No doubt, he pulls from both, but most polls have shown that he hurts Biden more, even if only by a 1–2 percent margin. But, of course, in a Biden-Trump rematch, which is currently a dead heat, a 1–2 percent difference would make all the difference.
As I write, RealClearPolitics’ composite average has Trump up over Biden by 44.5 to 44.2 percent in a head-to-head matchup. In a five-way race with Kennedy included, Trump’s lead over Biden goes up slightly, 41.6 to 40.6 percent. That would be decisive.
Biden and the Democrats certainly know that.
The last time that I wrote about RFK Jr. and Biden, I focused on the outrageous, egregious refusal by the Biden administration to provide Kennedy with Secret Service protection. (Could you imagine the media meltdown if President Trump had denied the same to a major challenger to his reelection? He would have been accused of wanting his opponent literally dead by assassination.)
“It’s not right for the President to provide protection to his family and political favorites while denying it to political rivals,” RFK Jr. told The American Spectator last October. “During his first week as Attorney General, my father assembled all the DOJ’s senior prosecutors to tell them that he would not tolerate any politicization of law-enforcement. President Biden displays a bust of my father in the oval office, but he seems to have forgotten this critical tenet of America democracy. During his administration, we’ve seen the wholesale cooption of federal law-enforcement agencies to censor criticism of White House policies and to serve other political ambitions.”
As for himself, Kennedy added: “I don’t spend time worrying about my personal safety. I do worry about the safety of my family and their sense of wellbeing — and about the safety of bystanders if there is a more serious incident.”
Despite multiple security threats to his very life, RFK Jr. has pushed on. He has not been scared out of the race.
In the meantime, Biden and the Democrats are running scared. Their strategy is to try to refuse Kennedy ballot access in state after state. These great advocates for “DEMOCRACY!” are doing their best to thwart democracy in the case of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
RFK Jr. is their ongoing nightmare.
READ MORE:
What Robert Kennedy Jr. Held Back From His Counterpunch of the Censorship State
Nicole Shanahan: RFK Jr.’s Unconventional Pick for Vice President