Why RFK Jr. may still be on the presidential ballot in Michigan
RFK Jr. could drop out of the presidential campaign, says his running mate
Could Robert F. Kennedy Jr. drop out of the presidential race?
Scripps News
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in Phoenix on Friday that he is suspending his presidential campaign and requesting that his name be removed from the ballots in “ten swing states.” He has already initiated the process in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
In Michigan, one of the most important swing states, election law currently allows Kennedy’s name to remain on the ballot in the fall, even though he is no longer seeking their votes. Kennedy, 70, was granted the right to vote in Michigan after a little-known political party, the Natural Law Party, nominated him in April.
Because the deadline for holding minor party state conventions has already passed (which coincided with Michigan’s August 6 primary), the Natural Law Party of Michigan cannot nominate another presidential candidate. This means that Kennedy joins Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris, Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump, and other minor party candidates as options for Michigan voters.
According to the Michigan Secretary of State, the Kennedy team contacted the Michigan Bureau of Elections on Friday to have his name removed from the presidential ballot for the November election in Michigan.
The Associated Press reported that Kennedy’s campaign withdrew from the Arizona ballot ahead of his Friday announcement and filed suit in Pennsylvania seeking his removal from the ballot there. It is currently unclear how Kennedy plans to have his name removed from the Michigan ballot.
Kennedy had little to no chance of getting enough votes to win the presidential election, and by the time he ended his campaign, he was not yet certified in all states. But in states like Michigan, where the margin between Harris and Trump is likely to be close, a third-party candidate like Kennedy taking votes from one of the major party candidates could decide the election.
Kennedy said he was pausing his campaign to avoid taking votes away from Trump, whom he endorsed on Friday. In making his announcement, he derided the Democratic National Committee and the mainstream media, accusing them of not allowing a serious challenge to President Joe Biden’s now-defunct re-election campaign in the primaries.
Most notably, Trump’s surprise victory in Michigan in 2016 over then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was partly due to the success of third-party candidates: Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein combined for more than 223,000 votes in Michigan in 2016, when Trump won the state by about 10,700 votes and entered the White House.
John Lindstrom, retired editor of Gongwer Michigan and a longtime member of the Michigan political press corps who also serves as a columnist for the Free Press, said the race between Harris and Trump would have to be extremely close for Kennedy to have any impact in Michigan even though he is no longer actively canvassing for votes. He noted that third-party candidates like Stein actively campaigned up until Election Day in 2016, while Kennedy had ended his campaign.
“I think Kennedy is a much lower risk, but still a potential problem,” Lindstrom said. He said Kennedy, who initially said he would seek the Democratic Party nomination before running as an independent, could have posed a bigger problem for Trump’s campaign because Kennedy’s anti-vaccine rhetoric could resonate more with voters on the right than voters on the left.
Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump on Friday is likely an attempt to sway voters who previously did not support Trump and instead voted for Kennedy.
Kennedy also had a better chance of being a spoiler in Michigan, as Biden was still seen as the likely Democratic nominee, Lindstrom added. In the state’s presidential primary in February, more than 13% of votes cast were “undecided” after voters who disapproved of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war publicly expressed their dissatisfaction. Lindstrom said it was possible that some undecided voters supported Kennedy over Harris, but Kennedy did not appear to be on the side of Democratic voters.
“If he had been on the ballot, he would have been a greater threat to Trump in some ways,” Lindstrom said.
Kennedy first gained access to the Michigan ballot in April, when the Secretary of State’s office confirmed that it had received the Natural Law Party’s nomination and the necessary documents from his campaign team.
The New York Times reported at the time that the nominating convention was a small gathering in Hartland attended by party chairman Doug Dern and his secretary, Kathleen Oakford. Dern, a Hartland lawyer who previously ran for the Natural Law Party in Michigan, could not be reached for comment Friday. When Kennedy’s nomination was announced by the party in April, Dern called Kennedy “the most qualified candidate in modern American history.”
In Michigan, five minor political parties have access to the state’s presidential ballots: the Natural Law Party, the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, the U.S. Taxpayers Party, and the Working Class Party. To gain access to the ballot, a minor political party’s primary candidate must receive at least 1% of all votes cast in the most recent gubernatorial election. To retain access, the party’s primary candidate must receive at least 1% of all votes cast for the winning candidate for secretary of state in the most recent election for that position, according to Michigan law.
Presidential candidates can also run as independents, but the process is much more cumbersome: State law requires independent candidates to collect between 12,000 and 60,000 valid signatures on their petition, including at least 100 signatures from half of Michigan’s congressional districts.
Kennedy, 70, is the son of Robert F. Kennedy, a former U.S. senator who was assassinated during his presidential campaign in 1968, and the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.
Kennedy not only belongs to one of the most famous political families in the country, but also made a name for himself as an environmental lawyer and later as an anti-vaccination activist.
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Contact Arpan Lobo: [email protected]
