RFK Jr. qualifies for first presidential ballot in Utah
By Aaron Pellish, CNN
(CNN) — Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will appear on the presidential ballot in Utah after formally filing with the state’s elections office on Wednesday, his campaign’s first step in an uphill battle to appear on the ballot in every state as part of his longshot White House bid.
Utah is the first state the Kennedy campaign has successfully filed to put his name on the ballot and has been a central focus of the campaign in recent weeks as it fleshes out its strategy to put Kennedy on the ballot in all 50 states and Washington, DC. The campaign’s audacious ballot access goal matches its optimism that Kennedy can make history as the only independent presidential candidate to win an election since the Democratic and Republican parties were founded.
Kennedy thanked campaign staff and volunteers shortly after filing his petition at the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City for helping gather the 1,000 signatures required for independent candidates to file for ballot access in the state. The Salt Lake County Clerk’s office verified the campaign’s signatures last week.
“I have a lot of ties to this state, I love this state, and I’m very, very grateful for the role that these volunteers and the people of the state have played in this election process,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy also thanked Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, who the campaign sued last month to extend the filing window past the state’s original deadline of January 8. The state ultimately agreed to move the deadline to March, but Kennedy praised the volunteers who gathered signatures for meeting the state’s original deadline regardless.
“These volunteers went out and beat the clock anyhow,” Kennedy said. “And we got them on time, and we got them in this very, very short period, when there was snow, there was sleet, there was very bad weather.”
“They did a spectacular job of getting our campaign on the ballot in this state,” he added.
Kennedy said recent polls – including one from Quinnipiac University released last month that showed Kennedy receiving 22% support in a hypothetical three-way race with President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner – put him within striking distance of winning the White House. In that same poll, Biden received 38% support and Trump received 36% support.
“We’re very, very confident that that’s gonna happen,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy lamented the application barriers for independent candidates in various states, pointing to specific ballot access provisions in West Virginia and Massachusetts and large signature gathering thresholds in states like California, New York and Texas, which he said are “deliberately burdensome” to prevent independent candidates from getting on the ballot.
“Some of the states have rules that are – it’s negotiating this labyrinth of these arcane rules that we now have in every state that are all designed to suppress dissent, to make sure that there are no options for Americans outside of the major political parties,” Kennedy said.
The campaign has created a substantial operation designed to keep their remaining 50 ballot access initiatives organized amidst various deadlines, signature requirements and other prerequisites needed to file.
“We’re ready for whatever comes our way,” Kennedy spokesperson Stefanie Spear said. “We have the field teams, volunteers, legal teams, paid circulators, supporters and strategy ready to get the job done.”
“One down, 50 to go,” she added.
Spear said the next states the campaign is already working toward ballot access in a handful of other states, and suggested the campaign could next gain it in Arizona or Missouri, while acknowledging ongoing efforts in Maryland and Nevada.
During his remarks, Kennedy accused state officials in three states – Maine, New Hampshire and North Dakota – of refusing to send the campaign ballot petitions, suggesting officials in those states may be demonstrating bias towards major party candidates, but said his campaign would overcome any mix-up with officials in those states.
“These are roadblocks or obstacles, but none of them are insurmountable. We will be on the ballot in 50 states and the District of Columbia,” Kennedy said.
When asked about ballot access in Maine, the same state where Trump was blocked from appearing on the ballot by the secretary of state, who claimed Trump violated the 14th Amendment’s clause on insurrectionists, Kennedy criticized officials in Maine and Colorado for seeking to remove Trump from their states’ ballots.
“We have a democracy in this country. You don’t have a banana republic, at least we’re not supposed to. People ought to be able to vote for who they want to vote for,” Kennedy said.
“I want to beat President Trump, but I want to beat him fair and square in an election where everybody gets to vote for who they want to vote for,” he added.
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