The Kennedy Campaign’s Problems Are Piling Up

It’s too early to know if Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential candidacy will ultimately represent a small and forgettable vehicle for disgruntled cranks or be a significant factor in the election’s outcome. To give him his due, RFK Jr. is one of just four independent candidates in living memory (the others being George Wallace, John Anderson, and Ross Perot) to have registered as much as 10 percent in general-election polls. Where his support comes from is a regular and major concern for the Joe Biden and Donald Trump campaigns.

But the problems the Kennedy camp is currently encountering are beginning to add up and even snowball. Here’s a rundown of the many issues he faces.

Problem No. 1: Ballot Access

Like other independent and minor-party candidates, Kennedy has to spend most of his money and much of his time simply trying to get onto general-election ballots by navigating a widely varying and often complex landscape of state election laws. His campaign claims it has met the requirements for ballot access in 15 states. But so far, according to the Boston Globe, only five states (Utah, Oklahoma, Michigan, Delaware, and Hawaii) have certified RFK Jr. as a general-election presidential candidate; among them, only Michigan is a battleground state. Team Kennedy is confident about eventually getting onto the ballot everywhere, as Perot did in 1992 and 1996 (albeit after the billionaire spent a big chunk of money for it). But now, ballot access has a new sense of urgency thanks to a second problem.

Problem No. 2: Debate Access

Getting onto the debate stage with major-party candidates is a bit of a great white whale for independent presidential aspirants, conferring desperately needed legitimacy and unequaled (and free) media attention. In 1992, debate access helped make Perot the most successful non-major-party presidential candidate since Teddy Roosevelt (at least in the national popular vote).

The sudden agreement of the Biden and Trump campaigns on an unusually early debate (in Atlanta on June 27, sponsored by CNN) was designed to create a one-on-one contest excluding RFK Jr. But CNN’s actual criteria for inclusion offer a glimmer of hope for Kennedy:

Candidates must … appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency and receive at least 15% in four separate national polls of registered or likely voters that meet CNN’s standards for reporting. Polls that meet those standards are those sponsored by CNN, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, Marquette University Law School, Monmouth University, NBC News, The New York Times/Siena College, NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College, Quinnipiac University, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

Kennedy has reached the 15 percent threshold in three of the qualifying polls, and he may hit four by the time the debate field is set on June 20. His bigger problem involves certifying ballot access in states that control a majority of the electoral college. Even if you buy his campaign’s dubious count of states where he has made the grade, they add up to only 207 electoral votes. Kennedy is already making the argument that “presumptive” nominees Biden and Trump can’t qualify either, at least before their national party conventions, but nobody’s going to buy that one. More likely, this means Team RFK Jr. will have to put the pedal to the metal to get ballot access in more states as quickly as possible.

Perhaps that won’t be a problem for the Kennedy campaign with the second planned debate, scheduled for September. But it would still need to meet a tough polling requirement, which leads to a third problem.

Problem No. 3: Slipping Poll Numbers

Team RFK Jr. got some bad news on May 22 when Quinnipiac, one of the two outlets that had given the candidate CNN-debate-qualifying poll numbers, came out with a new national survey showing him slipping below the required threshold, at 14 percent. But the much bigger problem is the likelihood (based on all the historical precedents) that his level of support will steadily decline as the general election approaches. Already he has seen a slow deterioration of his standing in the RCP national polling averages from 13 percent in the first quarter of 2024 to 10 percent now. A new battery of battleground-state polls from Bloomberg–Morning Consult reported a noteworthy reduction in support for Kennedy. He is also regularly doing more poorly in the few credible polls already screening for likelihood to vote (e.g., a new Marquette Law School poll showing him losing a third of his support when a likely-voter screen is applied), reflecting his disproportionate strength among low-propensity voters. To cite one very noticeable example, an April national likely-voter survey from NY Times–Siena gave Kennedy just 2 percent of the vote. These trends bear watching.

Problem No. 4: Biden and Trump Waiting to Pounce

For the most part, polls have shown Kennedy drawing support more or less equally from Biden and Trump. If that were to change, the major-party candidate being negatively affected would almost certainly come after the independent with a claw hammer (both the Biden and Trump campaigns have already been exploring Kennedy’s vulnerabilities in public comments). In fact, they both might do so anyway in hopes of depicting RFK Jr. as undesirable to their own supporters yet highly desirable to their opponent’s backers. The Biden campaign in particular has the resources for some soul-crushing negative ads if it chooses to go in that direction. And Kennedy’s main source of money to counter such malevolent attention comes with her own set of issues.

Problem No. 5: Nicole Shanahan

In choosing little-known patent lawyer and tech entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan as his running mate, Kennedy secured a lot of money (she became very wealthy after a divorce settlement with Google co-founder Sergey Brin and had already been generously helping the RFK Jr. campaign). But this comes with a lot of baggage. Aside from her lack of experience in politics and in the public eye, the media scrutiny of Shanahan as a possible vice-president has begun, and if a new profile from the New York Times is any indication, it could become a major distraction for the Kennedy campaign:

In 2011, Ms. Shanahan began dating [Jeremy] Kranz, a tech investor in San Francisco. She told people that she had converted to Judaism during that time for the relationship …

That July, Ms. Shanahan met Mr. Brin at a yoga festival in Lake Tahoe, Calif., four people with knowledge of the events said. He had recently separated from Anne Wojcicki, his wife at the time. Mr. Brin and Ms. Shanahan embarked on an affair weeks before her wedding to Mr. Kranz, the people said.

Mr. Kranz discovered the relationship several days after he married Ms. Shanahan when he saw texts between her and Mr. Brin on her phone, they said. He filed to annul the marriage 27 days after the wedding, court records show.

Her subsequent marriage to Brin ended, the Times reports, when Shanahan allegedly informed him of a sexual encounter (which she now denies ever happened) with none other than Elon Musk.

Shanahan could use some better name ID but not of this nature.

Problem No. 6: Internal Campaign Conflicts

Shanahan is also involved in what looks like a big dispute within the Kennedy campaign over a major 2024 election issue: abortion policy. Again, the New York Times has the story:

A key adviser to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is stepping away from his presidential campaign, citing an “increasingly hateful and divisive atmosphere” that “no longer aligns with my values.”

Angela Stanton King, the campaign’s adviser for Black engagement, announced her departure in a statement on social media on Tuesday evening, five months after she was added to the campaign’s payroll.

Stanton King was a former Trump supporter and QAnon fan whom the 45th president pardoned for a 2007 car-theft conviction. But more to the point, she’s an anti-abortion activist apparently aligned with Shanahan but not necessarily Kennedy on this issue, says the Times:

The Kennedy team has been waging an internal battle over the campaign’s abortion platform. Mr. Kennedy had previously said that he would not support government restrictions on abortion care, but reversed himself this month after a public pressure campaign from Ms. Shanahan and Ms. Stanton King, who is an anti-abortion activist and advocate for criminal justice reform.

What a mess.

All in all, it’s possible the Kennedy for President campaign has already peaked.