BROOKLYN, New York – Democrat-turned-independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is hitting back against repeated claims that he is a spoiler in the 2024 election. President Biden And former President Trump.
Kennedy on Wednesday Once again argued that he, rather than Biden, is the only candidate who can defeat Trump in November – and demonstrated a new internal poll conducted by his campaign to make his point – as he made a “no-spoiler pledge”. Announced.
“That’s a pledge we’re announcing today. That’s a pledge I offer to take if President Biden would also take it,” Kennedy said at a press conference.
Kennedy said his pledge calls for him and Biden to “agree to co-finance the elections in the 50 states with 30,000 or more likely voters in October. This would essentially, effectively, end the election in October of 2024.” There is zero margin of error. The poll will test the results of a head-to-head race pitting me against President Trump versus President Biden.”
Kennedy votes in this key general election battleground state
Democrat-turned-independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. holds a news conference in Brooklyn on May 1, 2024. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
Kennedy emphasized that “whoever will perform the weakest against him President Trump Will be out of the presidential race in a two-man contest. This is a promise to spoil.”
The longtime environmental activist and high-profile vaccine skeptic, who is the scion of the country’s most prestigious political dynasty, said he was “happy to make the same pledge” with Trump. But he also said that “Trump is not a spoiler because he can actually win.”
Neither the Biden campaign nor Democratic National Committee (DNC), which earlier this year enlisted experienced communicators to target third-party and independent candidates, responded to Kennedy’s pledge.
Kennedy reveals what he claims is his path to the presidency
In making his announcement, Kennedy and his campaign manager – daughter-in-law Amaryllis Fox Kennedy – highlighted a campaign-released internal survey of more than 26,000 respondents from all 50 states that made their case that Kennedy, rather than Biden, would have won the November election. Better chance of defeating Trump in a two-candidate race.
“People who think I’m screwing it for Biden need to look at the data,” Kennedy argued.
Kennedy launched his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in April last year, but in October the 70-year-old candidate ran as an independent for the White House.
The Biden campaign and the DNC have repeatedly slammed Kennedy as a potential spoiler whose supporters could tip off Trump to victory in the presidential election in November.
President Biden visits the Chavis Community Center in Raleigh, North Carolina on March 26, 2024. (Reuters/Elizabeth Frantz)
“We are doing everything in our power to get President Biden and Vice President Harris re-elected,” Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis stressed in a recent conference call with reporters. Take seriously every possible obstacle to the goal. “And let me be clear, that’s exactly what Robert F. Kennedy is in this election. He’s a spoiler.”
Many pundits and pollsters are claiming that Kennedy could also create similar problems for the presumptive Republican presidential candidate Trump.
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And as Kennedy has increased his presence on conservative media over the past few months, the former president and his campaign have increasingly portrayed Kennedy, whose populism on some issues sounds similar to Trump’s, as a far-left politician. .
Former President Trump gestures at a campaign rally in Rome, Georgia on March 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Trump repeatedly criticized Kennedy on his Truth Social site last weekend, charging that she is a “Democrat ‘plant'” and “far more liberal than anyone who has ever run as a Democrat.” ” The former president argued that “a ‘vote for Junior’ would essentially be a meaningless protest vote.”
Kennedy hit back, saying in a social media post, “When fearful people turn to social media they risk falling into vitriol that makes them feel uncomfortable.”
And, he claimed, “President Trump’s rhetoric against me is a barely coherent barrage of wild and inaccurate claims that should be resolved in the American tradition of presidential debates.”
Kennedy’s goal is to get on the ballot in all 50 states, an expensive and time-consuming venture for independent candidates.
Kennedy’s campaign announced earlier this week that he would be on the ballot in California, which has 54 electoral votes, the most of any state. Kennedy secured the nomination of a small third party, the American Independent Party.
Kennedy is also on the ballot as an independent candidate in Utah and Hawaii through a newly formed political party. Two weeks earlier, Kennedy had also polled in Michigan, a key general election battleground state, courtesy of another third party.
And his campaign said Kennedy had collected enough signatures to meet ballot access thresholds in the swing states of North Carolina and Nevada, New Hampshire, as well as the battleground states of Nebraska and Iowa.
