It’s bad new for Joe Biden. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy has qualified for the ballot in Michigan, one of the states that has caused the most concerns for Democrats in 2024.
In February, liberals who oppose Israel in the Great Lakes State sent a message to Biden that he should abandon America’s strongest ally in the Middle East in their war against the terrorist group Hamas.
Led by “Squad” member and congresswoman from Detroit, Rashida Tlaib, nearly 100,000 Michiganders voted “uncommitted” for Biden in this year’s Democratic primary.
Now, those Democrats may have another option besides Trump.
The campaign announced on Thursday that Kennedy and his running mate Nicole Shanahan were nominated by the Natural Law Party, a minor party with ballot access in the state. Natural Law Party of Michigan chair Doug Dern told CNN the party nominated Kennedy in a convention on Wednesday. The Michigan Secretary of State’s office confirmed to CNN the party’s nomination has been approved and Kennedy will appear on the state’s ballot.
Kennedy’s presence on the ballot in Michigan could alter the electoral dynamic in a state heavily contested by both President Joe Biden, who won the state in 2020, and former President Donald Trump, who won the state in 2016. The outcome of the elections in Michigan in both 2020 and 2016 was decided by less than 1% of the vote.
A Wall Street Journal poll released earlier this month found Kennedy polling at 12% among Michigan voters, trailing Trump at 39% and Biden at 37% in a hypothetical ballot featuring six total candidates. In a hypothetical head-to-head matchup between Trump and Biden, Trump earned 48% support from Michigan voters, while Biden earned 45% support.
Michigan has backed the Democratic nominee in every presidential election dating back to 1992, except for Trump’s victory in 2016, when he narrowly defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton by less than 11,000 votes in the state. In that same election, Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein received more than 220,000 votes combined in Michigan.
RFK, Jr. has caused so much anxiety for liberals that the Democratic National Committee has formed a group with the sole purpose of keeping independent candidates off the ballot, all in the name of “defending democracy.”
New Conservative Post noted, “It appears, however, that “defending democracy” has simply become code for “you must vote only for Democrats.” Nothing has shown this more than the way the Democratic National Committee has become obsessed with independent candidates and challengers to Biden in its own primaries.
The DNC has assembled its first-ever task force to challenge third-party and independent presidential contenders, hoping to keep voters from having alternative options to voting Democrat. This move comes as the party and its supporters gear up for what they perceive as a looming showdown against candidates deemed potential spoilers.
“Defending democracy” now means trying to get the leading challenger to the incumbent president banned from the presidency while working diligently to keep third parties off the ballot.”
“The DNC has hired veteran Democratic operative Lis Smith, best known for her work guiding the 2020 presidential campaign of Pete Buttigieg, to help oversee an aggressive communications component of its strategy, which also includes opposition research and legal challenges,” wrote NBC News.
“Underscoring how important Democrats view the effort, it is being overseen by Mary Beth Cahill and Ramsey Reid, two veteran DNC insiders, who have already started issuing rare public statements rebuking Robert F. Kennedy Jr.”
So far, it appears the group is failing.
