Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has filed paperwork to appear on the Pennsylvania ballot as a presidential candidate.
The fourth Kennedy to run for president and the first to do so as an independent, he maintains that he will win. That’s the position of any presidential candidate, no matter how long the odds.
Make no mistake, Kennedy’s odds are indeed long. Composite polling numbers from The Hill, for example, place him a distant third in the Keystone State. While former President Donald Trump is at 43.9% and President Joe Biden a hair behind at 42.6%, Kennedy is at 5.5%. That’s barely over the margin of error.
If the election happened today, Kennedy could not become president. He is on the ballot in just five states. Three went for Trump in 2020: Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah. The fourth, Michigan, was a swing state that went for Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2016. Delaware voted for Biden, its former longtime senator.
Kennedy has filed to get on the ballot in 11 more states: Alaska, California, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Washington. The 12th, Pennsylvania, is the only reliable swing state.
The presidential election takes place in just over four months. Absentee and mail-in voting in various states starts earlier. In Pennsylvania, ballots can start to be mailed out 50 days before the election. That makes the question of whether Kennedy is on the ballot one that needs to be resolved within weeks.
It needs to be resolved nationally, too, not just in Pennsylvania. To do otherwise devalues the decisions of every Pennsylvania voter.
If Kennedy is not on every state’s ballot, his candidacy is an expensive practical joke on the electorate. It presents him as an option, persuading some to throw him support.
But if he is not on the ballot in all states or at least enough to get the required electoral votes, voting for Kennedy is no different than writing in a vote for the Pirate Parrot. Yes, you might prefer him to the other options, but the baseball mascot isn’t a viable option.
The one value the Kennedy campaign really demonstrates to Pennsylvania voters is in the delineation of that averaged 5.5% block of his supporters in the various polls.
Those are the people the presidential race may boil down to in Pennsylvania — and if history tells us anything, that chunk of Pennsylvanians could decide the whole race.
In polling, those people are sticking by their independent candidate. His tiny chunk of polled voters is not enough for him to win, but it will make all the difference when only 1.3% separates Biden and Trump.
— Pittsburgh Tribune-Review via AP
