Two days after officially getting on the 2024 presidential general election ballot in Delaware, Rober F. Kennedy Jr. announced on May 8 that his campaign had gathered enough valid signatures to appear on Ohio’s ballot.
Former President Donald Trump won Ohio by eight points in the 2020 election.
President Joe Biden considers Delaware his home state. He prevailed there in 2020 by almost 20 points.
Mr. Kennedy is officially on the ballot in California, Delaware, Michigan, and Utah.
The campaign collected enough signatures for ballot access in Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Nevada before adding Ohio, Mr. Kennedy’s press secretary Stefanie Spear said in a statement.
Mr. Kennedy entered the 2024 presidential race in April 2023, when he declared his intent to challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic Party nomination.
Claiming that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was “rigging the primary” and not allowing candidates to oppose President Biden, Mr. Kennedy chose to run as an independent last October.
Since making that announcement, Mr. Kennedy has focused on gaining ballot access in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, a feat he told The Epoch Times he expects to achieve in July.
The Democratic National Convention and pro-Biden groups have directed significant resources to thwarting Mr. Kennedy’s bid to get on the ballot in all states and the District of Columbia.
Earlier this year, they formed a group to address Mr. Kennedy and third-party challengers such as independent Cornel West and Green Party nominee Jill Stein.
“Their [Democrats] only strategy is to try to keep me off the ballot and then to make everybody terrified of Donald Trump. On the other side, they do the same thing,” Mr. Kennedy said at a campaign stop last month.
“When somebody is telling you to vote out of fear, they are trying to manipulate you into abandoning your values,” he added.
Mr. Kennedy is currently working to get on the ballot in New York, which poses one of the most significant challenges, he acknowledged.
New York has a 42-day window for collecting signatures, the smallest time frame of any state. The petition gathering process started on April 16 and ends on May 28.
Candidates must gather and submit at least 45,000 valid signatures to qualify for ballot access.
At a May 1 press conference in Brooklyn, Mr. Kennedy said the campaign had reached the 45,000 mark, but would continue to gather signatures until it reached 90,000, in case an opposing party challenged the petitions.
Mr. Kennedy’s campaign is collecting double the number of signatures required understanding that some could be disqualified, Ms. Spear told The Epoch Times.
During a voter rally in Long Island on April 28, Mr. Kennedy encouraged Americans to “vote out of hope and not out of fear.”
At the May 1 press conference in Brooklyn, he urged President Joe Biden to drop out of the race, citing a Zogby Strategies poll that showed the current president would lose to former President Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup in Electoral College votes, 294–244.
In a race between Mr. Kennedy and President Biden, the challenger would win in a landslide of 367–171.
The survey included 26,408 respondents from 50 states polled between April 13 and April 21, and featured a 0.6 percent margin of error.
If President Biden does not step aside, Mr. Kennedy challenged him to sign a “no-spoiler pledge.”
Under the pledge, the DNC and the Kennedy campaign would agree to co-fund a 50-state poll with 30,000 or more likely voters in mid-October.
The survey would once again pit the current president and the former president in a two-way race, and Mr. Kennedy and President Trump in a head-to-head contest.
The candidate who performs the worst against President Trump would drop out, according to the pledge.
The White House did not respond to Mr. Kennedy’s announcement.
Meanwhile, Mr. Kennedy said that he believes his campaign already has enough signatures to qualify for the New York ballot.
The Kennedy campaign will continue to gather signatures until it surpasses 90,000, he said.
In recent months, the DNC and pro-Biden groups have called Mr. Kennedy a “spoiler” and have urged him to drop out to prevent President Trump from returning to the White House.
Earlier this year, speculation mounted that Mr. Kennedy could seek and gain the Libertarian Party’s 2024 presidential nomination.
He met with Libertarian National Committee Chair Angela McArdle, and they expressed mutual interest, but after a campaign stop in Iowa last month, Mr. Kennedy told The Epoch Times that he would continue his campaign as an independent.
“It will become obvious quickly [that] we will get ballot access,” Mr. Kennedy replied when asked whether he is still talking to the Libertarian Party about its nomination.
Mr. Kennedy told The Epoch Times that he would gain ballot access in “two to three states every week,” and he would be on the ballot in “every state” by the end of July.
