RFK Jr. and Ballot Access

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  The the 2024 race has begun. So has the debate over debates.

:Katherine Koretski at NBC:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s first reaction to this week’s debate agreement between President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and CNN was to accuse them of “colluding” against him. But within hours, the independent presidential candidate changed his tune: He was going to try to win a one-month sprint to meet CNN’s criteria and crash the stage.

The question is whether both Kennedy’s ballot-accessballot-access machine and the state government offices that will process his petition signatures are capable of moving quickly enough to get him on enough state ballots by mid-June to meet the debate criteria — and what exactly the cable network’s criteria, which have been used for autumn presidential debates for decades, mean in a different context at the beginning of summer.

Kennedy’s campaign has long aimed to get on the ballot in all 50 states before Election Day, but the debate accelerated its timeline because one of the criteria for participation is being “on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency prior to the eligibility deadline” a week before the debate.

JJessica Piper at Politico:

A major cash infusion from his running mate helped Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s longshot presidential campaign substantially ramp up spending on ballot access in April.

An $8 million donation from Silicon Valley lawyer Nicole Shanahan helped the Kennedy campaign spend $6.5 million in the month of April, up nearly 50 percent from March. A firm that works on ballot access accounted for more than one third of the monthly expenditures, according to a campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission Friday evening.

RFK Jr. Ballot Access and Veep Money

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.

 Voters are not happy about having to choose between Trump and Biden.  Nevertheless, it is dawning on people that third parties face daunting barriers in American politics.

Peder Schaefer at Politico:

In the past week the Democratic Party and other outside groups have put together a team to oppose third-party and independent candidates, a sign that Democrats are ready to fight back against candidacies they perceive as spoiler threats, like Kennedy.

The effort is staffed by longtime operatives like communications consultant Lis Smith, who helped guide Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign, and Dana Remus, who until recently served as Biden’s White House counsel, underscoring the seriousness of the concern.

The Democratic National Committee calls Kennedy a “stalking horse” who will increase Trump’s chances of winning in November. They point to significant contributions from Timothy Mellon, a Trump mega donor, to American Values 2024, and to lingering concerns that in 2016 third-party candidates may have tipped the presidency to Trump.

While Democratic attention was initially directed toward the wide array of third-party contenders, such as independent Cornel West and the No Labels coalition, Kennedy has become the focus of more energy as of late.

Geoffrey Skelley at ABC:

At this still-early juncture, just one minor candidate or party has qualified in enough states to theoretically win the presidency with 270 of the Electoral College's 538 electoral votes (note our publication's name). So far, the Libertarian Party looks likely to appear on at least 37 state ballots worth 381 electoral votes, having made the ballot in 36 states, according to Ballot Access News, and submitted petition signatures in Ohio. (Because many states won't confirm qualification until later this year, we're including cases in which a party or candidate has submitted qualification signatures or claims to have enough backing to qualify, as long as such claims can't be contradicted by available data. In a few cases, qualification might not actually happen.)

The Libertarians are in this position because they're arguably the most well-supported minor party nationally, with about three times as many registered voters as the next-closest third party, the Green Party. For their part, the Greens look to have access in about 21 states, having recently submitted signatures in South Dakota. No Labels, the bipartisan group behind this cycle's most-ballyhooed third-party bid, seems on course to overtake the Greens: Overall, the organization claims to have qualified in 18 states, while Ballot Access News noted that the group had completed its registration or signature drives to qualify as a party in at least four other states — this despite No Labels's insistence that it's not a party. Meanwhile, the conservative Constitution Party has also made 12 state ballots and looks to have met the signature requirement for a 13th in North Carolina.

Beyond these party or quasi-party organizations, Kennedy's campaign has officially made the ballot in one state — Utah — and claims to have qualified in three others, while an allied super PAC claims to have sufficient signatures for Kennedy to make the ballot in four more. For his part, West claims to have made the ballot in four states so far.

Ballot access efforts take money.  RFK Jr. picked a running mate who has money: Nicole Shanahan.  Teddy Schleifer reports at Puck:

Shanahan, by all accounts a true believer in Kennedy’s third-party cause, discovered the candidate in a now familiar, almost stereotypical way. According to associates, her evolution away from the political mainstream began while researching her daughter’s autism diagnosis. Shanahan was consumed, she has said, spending more than half of her time investigating the condition and talking to scientists. (Connections between vaccines and autism have been repeatedly debunked.) In the end, her curiosity led her to Kennedy, an environmental lawyer now better known as one of the nation’s leading anti-vaccine advocates.

There was also her divorce, finalized last year, which gave her a checkbook without interference from Bayshore. In mid-2022, she started a new family office, Planeta Management, which gave the $4 million check to the super PAC. And presumably that’s just a taste of the capital Shanahan has at her disposal. The terms of her divorce settlement with Brin haven’t been made public, but as I’ve reported, some R.F.K. allies had been told cryptically in recent weeks that they wouldn’t have to worry about money anymore—intimating the arrival of some serious cash. Presidential and vice presidential candidates aren’t limited in their self-funding.

Still, there’s the question that everyone is asking: How much capital does she really have to commit to their joint bid? My sense, for what it’s worth, is that I’d be surprised if she put in $50 million—but wouldn’t be surprised by $15 million. Perhaps that’s why a Kennedy campaign aide called me late Monday night to ask if her divorce settlement was a public document.

The money, of course, also accelerated her entry into Kennedy’s inner circle. Shanahan did not know Kennedy well before she made her first donation in mid-2023, I’m told by a source familiar with the relationship. But over the course of that year, Shanahan—enticed by R.F.K.’s appearances on various podcasts—began making connections with Kennedyworld, which was elated to welcome a hyper-connected Silicon Valley impresario.

 

Third Party Update

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.

 Voters are not happy about having to choose between Trump and Biden.  Nevertheless, it is dawning on people that third parties face daunting barriers in American politics.

 Peter Hamby at Puck writes on the CA Libertarian convention and the prospect that RFK Jr. could win the party's presidential nod:

That prospect crashed into reality the following day, when convention organizers ran a presidential straw poll. Out of 95 votes cast, [Lars] Mapstead won. [Michael] Rectenwald came in second. Kennedy came in dead last in the straw poll, earning only a single vote.

...

Of course, Kennedy was merely testing the waters in Costa Mesa. He isn’t officially seeking the Libertarian nod. But given the resistance to his candidacy from the convention-goers, his path to get on ballots everywhere has essentially reset to where it was before the weekend. Kennedy’s team is confronting a patchwork of ballot-access laws that are different in every state.

Some states require tens of thousands of validated signatures, which is a heavy lift for even the most well-funded candidates from the two major parties. Kennedy, at least, has money to count on. Thanks to his family name, Los Angeles connections, and small-dollar online support, Kennedy is raising a respectable amount of money for a gadfly candidate. He ended the fourth fundraising quarter last year with $5.4 million in the bank. But the Kennedy campaign continues to burn through cash, spending heavily to collect ballot access signatures. A super PAC backing his campaign is also working to secure ballot access for Kennedy, but that effort is likewise facing a legal challenge from the Democratic National Committee over claims of improper coordination.

Tara Palmieri at Puck:

So it’s finally put up or shut up time for No Labels—the disorganized dark money group that counts Nelson Peltz, Steve Schwarzman, and Harlan Crow as donors—to execute its quixotic plan to assemble a unity-ticket to challenge the increasingly inevitable disappointment of a Trump–Biden rematch. Over the last two years, the third-party group has raised tens of millions on the assumption that No Labels and its opportunistic C.E.O., Nancy Jacobson, could recruit a viable candidate—Larry Hogan, say, with Joe Manchin as V.P. Sure, No Labels has been able to get their name on the ballot in 16 states. Unfortunately, they just haven’t been able to find that dream ticket, which will prevent them from ballot access in many others.

So on March 8, just three days after Nikki Haley is set to be demoralized in 16 states on Super Tuesday, No Labels is handing over the power to their 800 delegates to make a choice about whether to move forward, and with whom. Their ideal candidate, of course, has been Haley, herself.

In fact, No Labels emissaries have been trying to persuade Haley through back channels, but she’s emphatically resisted. Joe Lieberman, who sits on the board, has told donors that the organization has three strong options, including a Republican governor, but he won’t share names. So far, No Labels has also flirted with total non-starters like Chris Christie and Hogan and Manchin, until they got turned down. (Hogan is now running for Senate in Maryland.) It’s hard to see anyone leaving their party to run as a spoiler, and No Labels had made it clear they need a Republican on the top of the ticket so as not to hand the election to Trump.

 

Trump Off the Maine Ballot

Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution. 

Zach Montellaro at Politico:

Maine’s top election official ejected former President Donald Trump from the state’s ballot on Thursday, declaring him ineligible to serve as president because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress.

The ruling by Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, is certain to inflame a roaring national debate over whether the Republican presidential frontrunner should be allowed to hold power again.

The decision makes Maine the second state in two weeks to disqualify Trump’s candidacy due to the constitutional bar on officeholders who supported or “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” Last week the Colorado Supreme Court barred Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot under a similar interpretation of the 14th Amendment.

Bellows’ decision on Thursday increases the pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and ultimately decide Trump’s fate — as the Colorado GOP petitioned the justices this week to do.

Unlike the Colorado ruling, this one comes from an individual officeholder affiliated with the Democratic Party. And Maine, unlike Colorado, has been a presidential battleground in recent years; under an unusual state law, it cast one of its Electoral College votes for Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

Trump was quick to attack the decision, with an aide calling it “partisan election interference.” But his removal from the ballot in two states remains a stark illustration of his deep legal and political vulnerabilities.

Bellows, who made the call in Maine because state law requires the secretary to adjudicate ballot challenges to candidates’ eligibility, defended her decision in her determination.

“I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Bellows wrote. “I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”

The Colorado Decision and the GOP Nomination Contest

 

Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.   

Maggie Haberman at NYT:

It may take weeks to find out whether the decision by the Colorado Supreme Court to declare Donald J. Trump ineligible to be on the state primary ballot will hold.

But its short-term political impact was clear by the time Mr. Trump stepped off a stage on Tuesday night in Iowa, where he learned of the ruling shortly before a scheduled campaign rally began.

Allies of the former president posted on social media that the ruling was an outrage, one that the U.S. Supreme Court needed to rectify.

Colorado’s top court found that Mr. Trump had incited an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and should be barred from the ballot under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Mr. Trump could remain on the ballot regardless — the Colorado justices put their ruling on hold as appeals are likely to proceed — but Mr. Trump’s team was hardly dwelling on that detail.

Even if Mr. Trump remains on the ballot, any court having said that Mr. Trump incited an insurrection will be used against him in a general election, in ways his advisers know could be damaging. But the Republican primary is different. Officials with Mr. Trump’s rival G.O.P. campaigns privately feared that the decision would be seen as an overreach by Democrats, one that could bolster his current lead among Republicans in the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15, and in the primaries immediately after.

For years, events that would thwart other politicians have at best slowed Mr. Trump’s forward motion, with the prominent exception of his loss in the 2020 election to Joseph R. Biden Jr. Throughout 2023, Mr. Trump has exploited as political fodder events that would have sunk other candidates — such as being indicted four times, on 91 felony charges — with a Republican electorate that has been told Democrats are threatening their way of life.

Challengers Faces Challenges

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  The 2024 race has begun.  The logistics of running a presidential campaign -- especially ballot access -- can be daunting for third-party candidates and longshot primary challengers.

David Drucker at The Dispatch:

Earlier this year, No Labels made waves when it signaled it would seek to nominate an independent presidential candidate in 2024 who could face off against President Joe Biden and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. But the nonpartisan organization has pumped the brakes on elements of its effort in recent months, with top officials reassessing their strategy for selecting and nominating candidates.

...
Sources blame the hiccups on fresh resistance from inside No Labels to previously agreed upon steps the group was to take toward potential candidate nominations—plus disorganization and unforeseen logistical challenges. “Deadlines have slipped, discussions have continued,” an individual close to the group told The Dispatch, requesting anonymity to speak candidly. “Nobody’s done this—these are talented people but they’ve never done anything like this. I haven’t either.”

Two weeks ago, No Labels canceled its in-person nominating convention scheduled for mid-April in Dallas, opting instead for a virtual gathering.

Filip Timotija and Hanna Trudo at The Hill:

Outsider presidential candidates are vying to appear on as many ballots as possible before November, hoping to qualify in enough general election swing states to complicate the path for President Biden and former President Trump.

The battle for the ballots is underway as the race among incumbent-challenging Democrats, independents and third-party candidates has frustrated those who’d prefer to focus on Biden’s low popularity and Trump’s ascent.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent, and Democrats Rep. Dean Phillips (Minn.), Marianne Williamson and Cenk Uygur are strategizing over how to legally get their names in front of voters in key states before the fall.

...

One Democratic strategist who worked on a presidential campaign in 2020 recalls the monumental task of getting their candidate to appear in enough places to be viable.

“It was difficult getting on the ballots of certain states,” a strategist and former campaign adviser wrote to The Hill. “We spent a lot of money canvassing states for signatures. Like A LOT.”

...

“Getting on the ballots requires either a huge staff on the ground that can go knocking door to door or paying a canvassing firm a ton of money to get the signatures,” said the strategist, recalling efforts to prop up a candidate from the Democratic primary in 2020 who ultimately didn’t garner much traction. “Not to mention the fees for appearing on the ballot themselves.”

...

In Florida, the Democratic Party’s executive committee placed Biden as the only Democrat running in the 2024 primary, bypassing Phillips, Williamson and Uygur.

Following the decision of the executive committee, all three Democratic candidates publicly blasted the Florida Democrats. Michael Steinberg, a former congressional candidate and Tampa Bay attorney, filed a federal lawsuit against the state party arguing that Phillips in particular should be on the ballot.

Petition Signature Fraud Reshapes MI Governor Race

Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

Taylor DesOrmeau at MLive:

Five of the 10 Republican candidates for governor don’t have enough valid signatures to make the ballot, according to a report from the Michigan Bureau of Elections after a thorough review.

The five candidates without enough valid signatures are James Craig, Perry Johnson, Michael Brown, Michael Markey Jr. and Donna Brandenburg.

The report is not a final decision, however. The Michigan Board of State Canvassers will vote Thursday, May 26, to determine which candidates have enough valid signatures. The Bureau of Elections report is just a recommendation for the board.

If all five candidates are disqualified, that would leave five Republican candidates on the Aug. 2 primary ballot: Garrett Soldano, Kevin Rinke, Ryan Kelley, Tudor Dixon and Ralph Rebandt.

The board of canvassers has two Republicans and two Democrats. It could take issue with certain petitions and signatures that were deemed invalid.

Governor candidates need at least 15,000 signatures, and 100 from each congressional district, to qualify for the primary ballot. Candidates were allowed to submit up to 30,000.

The winner from among the GOP candidates will face Democratic incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the Nov. 8 general election.

Here’s how many valid/invalid signatures the Bureau of Elections found for the six candidates in question:

• Tudor Dixon: 29,041 valid signatures, 199 invalid signatures
• Perry Johnson: 13,800 valid signatures, 9,393 invalid signatures
• James Craig: 10,192 valid signatures, 11,113 invalid signatures
• Michael Brown: 7,091 valid signatures, 13,809 invalid signatures
• Michael Markey Jr.: 4,430 valid signatures, 17,374 invalid signatures
• Donna Brandenburg: 6,634 valid signatures, 11,144 invalid signatures

Many of the faulty petitions came from the same 36 circulators, who submitted an estimated 68,000 invalid signatures across petitions for 10 different Michigan candidates for governor and other positions, per the bureau.

Having fraudulent signatures submitted is common, the bureau said in its report, but it is “unaware of another election cycle in which this many circulators submitted such a substantial volume of fraudulent petition sheets consisting of invalid signatures, nor an instance in which it affected as many candidate petitions as at present.”

Barriers to Third Parties

At RealClearPolitics, Scott Conroy discusses the barriers to third parties, and focuses on the failure of Americans Elect.

When Americans Elect began its efforts, organizers believed that gaining ballot access in all 50 states would be their biggest challenge. As it turned out, the signature-gathering process, the parameters of which are unique to each state, was indeed as onerous and costly as they imagined it would be.

But in the end, the piece of the puzzle that the group initially assumed would fall into place relatively neatly -- attracting a candidate who could actually win the race -- proved the most unworkable element of the entire enterprise.

“We had the money and the people to achieve 50-state ballot access,” said Americans Elect CEO Kahlil Byrd. “But of all the people we briefed on this idea who would’ve been credible candidates, to a person they all decided not to do it. And I guess that attests to their sanity because they knew that they were going to be in a brawl with the two parties, especially if they got serious and got some traction.”

The organization’s fizzle came four years after a similarly minded organization, Unity08, failed to gain much interest and also collapsed.

There is a key reason, it turns out, why the last viable third-party presidential candidate was Ross Perot in 1992: He was a self-starting billionaire. In other words, the candidate came first and the organization followed. And on the presidential level, it appears that’s the way it has to be.

Third Party Run for Ron Paul?

Ron Paul could raise enough money to mount a serious third-party bid for the presidency. And if he were (again) the Libertarian Party nominee, he would have fewer problems with ballot access. Is he thinking about it? See this interview:

Juan Williams, FOX News: "Everybody in this town thinks there is going to be a third-party candidate. An independent candidate. If you don't get the Republican nomination, could that independent candidate be Ron Paul?"

Ron Paul, candidate: "Look, Juan, you have to realize let's say that I was thinking about that and I said that. Then it would undermine what I'm doing. I'm running for president. I'm doing pretty well, I'm in third. So, no, I'm running for president in the Republican party, I'm doing very well. And last time they wondered about it, but, you know the whole thing is, is boy the people are really frustrated. You go to New Hampshire there are more independents then Republicans or Democrats."

Williams: "But what you're saying is you are not saying that you will not run as an Independent."

Paul: "Well, I say, is that I have no plans to do it."

Bret Baier, host: "So, how about are you big on pledges? Would you pledge here tonight that you would not run in a third party?"

Paul: "I pledge that I have no intention of doing it."

[laughing]

Paul: "I'm running for this Republican primary!"

Baier: "That sounds pretty political, Congressman."

[more laughing]

Paul: "Well, you know, I have to vacillate a little bit in my life."

Charles Krauthammer: "We need a grammarian to work on that sentence."