Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reported on May 16 that his campaign had collected enough signatures to gain ballot access in New Jersey and hinted that he would achieve the same feat in New York by the May 28 deadline.
In a May 16 statement, Mr. Kennedy’s campaign announced that it had gathered more than three times the 800-signature minimum in New Jersey.
When Mr. Kennedy named Nicole Shanahan as his running mate in late March, he said he would announce one to three states per week where ballot access was attained, a prediction that so far has been accurate.
Ballot access is a widely discussed topic in Mr. Kennedy’s bid to become the first independent president since George Washington.
Mr. Kennedy announced his candidacy to challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic Party nomination in April 2023. After encountering multiple roadblocks from the Democratic National Committee and claiming that the organization was “rigging the primary” to favor President Biden and prevent other candidates from competing, he chose to run as an independent in October 2023.
Since then, Mr. Kennedy has focused on gaining ballot access in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
New York May Be Next
Mr. Kennedy told supporters at a voter rally in Austin, Texas, on May 13 that the campaign has also gathered enough signatures to appear on the New York ballot, but a formal announcement has yet to be made.New York has a 42-day window for collecting signatures, the smallest time frame of any state. The petition-gathering process started on April 16 and ends on May 28.
Candidates must gather and submit at least 45,000 valid signatures to qualify for ballot access.
Mr. Kennedy said the campaign had reached the 45,000 mark but would continue to gather signatures until it reached 90,000, in case an opposing party challenged the petitions.
Stefanie Spear, Mr. Kennedy’s press secretary, told The Epoch Times that the campaign is collecting double the number of required signatures knowing that some could be disqualified.
On May 13, Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Shanahan walked into the Texas Secretary of State’s office and turned in 242,572 signatures.
The campaign had 45 days to gather 113,451 signatures in Texas.
Mr. Kennedy expressed optimism about appearing on the New York ballot after achieving access in states such as California and Texas.
“The pundits, you heard them from the beginning of the campaign, saying it would be impossible to get on the ballot, and we got on the ballot in Texas. If you can get on in Texas, we can get on everywhere,” he said at the Austin voter rally.
“The DNC has done everything in their power to stop us, but we are going to get on the ballot in every state.”
Qualifying for Debates
Last week, Mr. Kennedy’s campaign noted in a statement that it had successfully secured the necessary funding to achieve ballot access across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.An $8 million contribution from Ms. Shanahan helped to facilitate the achievement, according to the statement.
The fact that Mr. Kennedy is now on the ballot in 15 states and eligible to receive 201 electoral votes is significant. One qualification that Mr. Kennedy must meet to appear in debates is to appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold.
Another guideline is to reach at least 15 percent in national polls. For the recently announced June 27 debate hosted by CNN and the Sept. 10 event coordinated by ABC News, candidates must be at or above 15 percent in four select national polls.
The Commission on Presidential Debates, which has three forums slated for September and October, requires the 270 electoral vote threshold and a 15 percent minimum in five national polls.
Supporters Not Deterred by ‘Worm’ Story
Steven Kinzie is an Austin resident who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. He served as a volunteer to collect signatures for Mr. Kennedy’s quest to qualify for the Texas general election ballot and believes that the candidate will appear on the debate stage and accomplish the objective of getting on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.Inside Brazos Hall, where the Austin voter rally took place, he held a homemade sign that read “Worms, Not Wars.”
The sign was a light-hearted reference to a recent New York Times report on statements that Mr. Kennedy made in a 2012 deposition. He had said that after one set of doctors initially believed that he had a brain tumor in 2010, another physician determined that a brain scan discovered a dead parasite. He surmised in his statement that a worm had eaten some of his brain, a claim that multiple doctors have said cannot happen.
Since the report earlier this month, Mr. Kennedy has made light of the story.
In a surprise standup comedy appearance in Los Angeles earlier this month, Mr. Kennedy took the stage and said the brain worm wrote some jokes for him to deliver.
Mr. Kinzie believes that the added attention from the brain worm report is “a positive” for Mr. Kennedy because “more people will know he is running for president and that will help with ballot access signatures and polling to get in the debates.”
“His main challenge is getting in front of people who hear directly what he has to say instead of relying on what mainstream media reports,” Mr. Kinzie told The Epoch Times. “When you watch his podcast interviews and hear his ideas in person, you realize he is not the conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer that the mainstream media portrays him to be.”
