At his marketing campaign occasions, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not simply making his pitch for the presidency — he is additionally asking voters to place him on the poll of their states, a steep hurdle that have to be cleared by unbiased candidates.
At a latest rally in Kansas City, Missouri, Kennedy requested the group of about 300 voters for assist. The state requires unbiased candidates to gather 10,000 signatures by July 29 to seem on the 2024 basic election presidential poll.
“I need you to help me,” Kennedy mentioned. “You know, in this state, Democrats and Republicans both get on the ballot for free. I need to work for it.”
The necessities for poll entry for candidates who should not the Democratic or Republican nominees fluctuate extensively from state to state, and the primary deadlines are in early March, for North Carolina and Utah. Utah initially required unbiased candidates to file by Jan. 8, 2024, however earlier this month — quickly after Kennedy filed a lawsuit in opposition to the state — it modified the date to March 5.
Ed Rollins, the marketing campaign supervisor for Ross Perot, who ran for president as an unbiased in 1992 and because the Reform Party nominee in 1996, mentioned getting on the poll in each state was the toughest a part of Perot’s 1992 bid.
“It’s a very difficult process…to be an independent candidate, and qualify for the ballot it takes a real massive grassroots effort,” Rollins mentioned.
Perot spent hundreds of thousands on poll entry, and although he succeeded in making it onto the poll in all 50 states, he didn’t win any of them.
“It was a massive cost, and anybody today that basically wanted to do that is to have upfront money and be prepared to go forth, challenge the establishment in most places,” Rollins mentioned.
In an interview with NewsNation final week, Kennedy estimated he’d want “about a million signatures and navigating” guidelines and necessities to make it onto the poll in all of the states and the District of Columbia. Some states require only a few thousand signatures, he mentioned, however others “deliberately make it very, very difficult to get on, and you have to have the signatures notarized, and you have to get them from every county, and you have to do it in a very, very short period of time.” But he claimed he has an enormous military of volunteers — 250,000 — that might be serving to him. His marketing campaign instructed CBS News that quantity is nearer to 45,000 volunteers.
Without this volunteer assist, he mentioned that paid signature gatherers would cost about $15 per signature, so for the signatures alone, poll entry would often price as a lot as $15 million.
However, Kennedy’s poll entry drive will even be closely underwritten by the tremendous PAC supporting him, American Values 2024. In December, the tremendous PAC introduced it will be investing $10 million to $15 million to place him on the poll in at the least 10 states, together with Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New York, and Texas. The tremendous PAC instructed CBS News a part of this funding might be used for a staff of attorneys to navigate the rules and necessities.
Kennedy press secretary Stefanie Spear instructed CBS News expressed confidence about his poll entry prospects.
“We’ve begun signature collection in all open states and you know we’re confident that Mr. Kennedy can get the 270 electoral votes and win the White House,” Spear mentioned. In some states signatures have to be collected inside a sure window of time.
“We’re making our schedule,” she mentioned, including that she anticipated “that we can be successful at collecting signatures in every state and meeting all the different state guidelines in order to get him on every ballot in 50 states.”
Utah simply pushed its deadline to acquire 1,000 signatures from Jan. 8 to March 5 after Kennedy filed a lawsuit final week that referred to as the unique date “unconstitutionally” restrictive.
“We’re going to have to probably fight legal battles from out of the states, but we’re ready to do that,” he mentioned in response to a query from CBS News.
College pupil Jacob Halphin, 25, signed Kennedy’s petition for the Missouri poll at Wednesday’s rally and says he would contemplate an unbiased candidate.
“I’m completely open to anyone, just preferably not Biden, or Trump, but not necessarily Kennedy,” Halphin instructed CBS News.
“He deserves to be on the ballot if he’s going through this much trouble and it’s created this much of a wave,” Halphin mentioned.
Kennedy’s in-person attraction to voters in Missouri underscores the state’s potential openness to unbiased candidates. The state has backed Republicans for the presidency in each election for many years — besides in 1992 and 1996 — the years that Perot ran. Bill Clinton gained in each of these years. Perot obtained 22% of the vote in Missouri in 1992, and George H.W. Bush gained 34% — the worst efficiency for a Republican within the state since 1860.
University of Missouri political science professor Elizabeth Vonnahme says there’s an “appetite for something besides Trump and Biden.”
“Kansas City is a good spot in the sense that it can appeal to folks on the Missouri side and the Kansas side who might be disaffected by both the Democrats and the Republicans,” Vonnahme mentioned. “There’s a significant number of people like that, who would be willing to come to a rally and are willing to at least hear out an independent candidate for president.”
Patrick Marsh, who crossed the state border from Kansas for Kennedy’s rally, says the signature-gathering effort hasn’t begun there, however he is able to signal the petition to place Kennedy on the poll in his state.
“We want him to be on the ballot, but I think he’ll get it done,” Marsh mentioned, including that Kennedy is “the only person I’m voting for. I’m not considering anybody else.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-ballot-access/
