Robert F. Kennedy Jr. picks running mate, lawyer Nicole Shanahan
38-year-old lawyer and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan was announced as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate.
WASHINGTON ― Haunted by election spoilers of the past, President Joe Biden’s Democratic allies have mobilized against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., intent on stopping his independent presidential bid from dooming Democrats in November.
On the 2024 campaign trail, Biden has ignored Kennedy, the anti-vaccine activist and son of deceased liberal icon Robert F. Kennedy, as he focuses solely on Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee.
But behind the scenes, the Democratic National Committee recently hired a team of attorneys, led by Dana Remus, Biden’s former White House counsel, to monitor Kennedy’s efforts to get his name on ballots of key battleground states before upcoming spring and summer qualifying deadlines.
And the DNC has expanded operations to paint Kennedy as a radical conspiracy theorist, rejected even by his family, whose campaign serves one purpose: boosting Trump’s chances. Democrats are convinced much of the electorate isn’t aware of Kennedy’s controversial positions and theories or that he’s boosted financially by a Trump Super PAC’s largest donor.
“We’re not taking anything for granted. No one wants to see what happened in 2000 and 2016 happen this time around, so we’re putting pieces in place early,” said Matt Corridoni, a DNC spokesman.
Trump: ‘If I were a Democrat, I’d vote for RFK Jr.’
Seven months from the election, Kennedy has the support of 11.7% of likely voters, according to a RealClearPolitics average of polls. That doesn’t make him a serious contender to win the election. But Kennedy’s current double-digit standing is more than enough to swing outcomes in battleground states.
Democrats still blame Green Party nominee Jill Stein in 2016 for taking progressive votes away from Hillary Clinton, potentially costing Clinton Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to Trump. In 2000, consumer rights advocate Ralph Nader won more than 97,000 votes in Florida, significantly greater than the margin of George W. Bush’s victory over Al Gore in the state that gave Bush his victory.
“Any amount of shift, any amount that that RFK takes from either candidate, is a danger to them and could, in fact, flip the election,” said Bernard Tamas, a political science professor at Valdosta State University and author of “The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties.”
“If I was working for the Biden campaign, I would take it very seriously because you don’t know what’s going to happen with him. The numbers will probably drop a lot,” Tamas said. “But you just don’t know. It’s an enormous uncertainty.”
Whether Kennedy takes more votes away from Biden than Trump − or whether it’s about the same from both − has been debated among political observers. Kennedy is also facing increasing attacks from Trump’s Super PAC, MAGA Inc., which has labeled Kennedy a radical far-left liberal in a push to pull progressive voters from Biden.
Trump’s allies believe that the multiple independent or third-party candidates in the race help Trump’s chances, and are seeking to elevate their campaigns, the New York Times reported this week.
“If I were a Democrat, I’d vote for RFK Jr. every single time over Biden because he’s frankly more in line with Democrats,” Trump said in a video released by his campaign Thursday. “I do believe that RFK Jr. will do very well, and I do believe he’s going to take a lot of votes away from crooked Joe Biden.”
Voters view Biden, Trump more negatively than Kennedy
Kennedy initially launched a Democratic primary challenge against Biden before switching to an independent run last year.
Also threatening to peel off voters from Biden are left-leaning activist Cornel West, who is running as an independent, and Stein, who like 2016 is running as the Green Party’s nominee. For now, the DNC is focused primarily on Kennedy, whose…
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