Election Day 2024 is about seven months away, and it is going to be a re-match of Biden and Trump; however, the possibility of a third-party candidate shaping the outcome of the race is within the realm of possibility. Specifically, the name recognition of Robert F Kennedy Jr., combined with the campaign finances of his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, could siphon enough votes from Biden to hand the election to Trump. ABC News political analyst Steve Roberts appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program to explain how a modestly successful campaign would make this outcome possible.
“If you are running as a Libertarian or a Green Party candidate, you are already established,” Roberts explained to Berman and Riedel. “Your party has places on most of the state ballots around the country. If you start from scratch, one of the key barriers is how many state ballots you can get on, because many states make it very difficult to get on the ballots by getting enough signatures. You’ve got to get thousands of signatures in every county in the state. But with her money, that means he can hire squads of contractors and employees to get those signatures, so suddenly the prospect of him being on many more state ballots is much more real.”
But getting on a ballot is one thing; winning a state is something else. Still, Roberts says Biden and Trump are paying close attention to the RFK brand, even though a Kennedy win is impossible. “Over the weekend, Donald Trump himself said of Kennedy, ‘I love that he’s running. He’s great for MAGA.’ [Meanwhile] there are stories about how the Democrat National Committee has created a whole wing of their campaign messaging operation to trash Robert F. Kennedy Jr. So, I think both sides are agreeing that, while he cuts both ways, he’s much more likely to hurt Biden.”
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