Robert F. Kennedy Jr still needs to get on the ballot in several key states, including large parts of the South and the Midwest, according to data that Newsweek has mapped.
The independent candidate for President originally contested the Democratic primary against President Joe Biden. Currently polling at around 10% nationally, RFK Jr still does not have ballot access in every U.S. state, leaving large holes in his electoral strategy. In some states, his campaign is taking legal action to ensure he is on the ballot in November.
Kennedy announced his campaign in April 2023, and selected Silicon Valley attorney Nicole Shanahan as his running mate in March this year. His campaign has been critical of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, with a heavy focus on appealing to disillusioned independent voters.
Kennedy has repeatedly claimed he will contest the election nationally, and his campaign says it has a dedicated public plan to getting ballot access across the country.
Below is a map showing where RFK Jr is on the ballot and where he is currently petitioning to be on it.
Currently, Kennedy is on the ballot in 18 states, including those with large Electoral College votes, such as California, Texas, and New York. If he were to win every state he is currently on the ballot for, he would take only 238 Electoral College votes, still below the 270 needed to win.
Additionally, Kennedy is not yet on the ballot for several key swing states, most notably Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, and Georgia. Biden won the latter in 2020 by less than 12,000 votes.
There is also a heavy focus on engaging local volunteers to help Kennedy get on the ballot, particularly with regards to gathering signatures. The Kennedy campaign website says that: “The establishment candidates cruise to ballot access while forcing independents like us to gather more than 1 million signatures. But their rigged system is no match for our surging populist movement.”
Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has named Nicole Shanahan his vice presidential running mate.
LEFT: Gonzalo Marroquin/Getty Images for Gold House, RIGHT: John Nacion/Getty Images
Kennedy has recently announced that he will be suing the state of Nevada for allegedly trying to invalidate signatures the campaign needed to get on the ballot in the state.
State officials said that because Kennedy announced his vice-presidential running mate while he was still campaigning for signatures, any signatures on petitions without Shanahan featured on them are invalid. The Kennedy campaign claims they had explicit confirmation from the Nevada secretary of state that these petitions would be valid.
Kennedy Campaign Senior Counsel Paul Rossi said that the secretary of state had changed their mind on the petition issue and that the campaign had a clear case against the Nevada, saying: “The court must prohibit what was either rank incompetence or partisan political gamesmanship by the Secretary from invalidating petition signatures afforded the highest First Amendment protection by the United States Supreme Court.”
Newsweek contacted the Kennedy campaign and the Nevada secretary of state’s office for comment.
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