2024 Third Party and Independent Candidate General discussion

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https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2023/11/15/utah-jazz-great-john-stockton-is/

NBA’s greatest point-guard John Stockton endorses RFK Jr

In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Stockton said he is backing independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for president because “I believe he’s been put on this planet for just this moment in time.”

“There’s a real need for him and his leadership, there’s a need for very smart people in these positions that have integrity that [is] off the charts, that have the stamina and strength to be able to speak and be a leader 24/7,” Stockton told the conservative media outlet.

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Regardless of how you feel about RFK Jr. - if someone is averaging 15% in polls, he/she should be on the ballot in all 50 states. If RFK Jr misses any major state, then I think the rules need to change

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Kennedy / Gabbard ticket?

https://twitter.com/BryceMLipscomb/status/1744113102885445933

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Regardless of how you feel about RFK Jr. - if someone is averaging 15% in polls, he/she should be on the ballot in all 50 states. If RFK Jr misses any major state, then I think the rules need to change

I mean what if someone engineers fake or biased polls? I get what you're saying, but the metric should be a little more verifiable. For presidential debates on the other hand...

Even in a scenario where one candidate engineers mass amount of polls just to get on the ballot (which RFK Jr has not done BTW), or let’s say the polls are wrong and give someone a lot more support than they have   …  I still say so what? what’s the harm of giving that candidate ballot access anyways? If the candidates suck, people can choose to disregard them. But give people the option to choose or disregard them: the voters can figure out what to do. The upsides of giving more ballot access to candidates outweighs the downsides

The ones who want a tight and stringent restriction on ballot access are Biden supporters who  are just afraid that they’d lose with a third party option. But if your guy is losing his supporters to a third party option, than that speaks just as much to your guy’s weakness as the third-party candidates’ strengths 

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VP Alert

https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1745168834967846992

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Trump and RFK Jr are sparring for the first time

https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1752805359276757377

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DNC filed lawsuit against RFK Jr campaign,  claiming they’re breaking laws by using a super-PAC to get signatures. The DNC says RFk Jr and his campaign have to gather signatures, not a super-PAC

RfK Jr responds that the DNC is just looking for anything to get the attention away from the brutal special counsel report. I’m inclined to believe RFK jr. And the superpac says they are working independently from RFK Jr and his campaign too

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13067177/rfk-jr-dnc-accused-violating-election-laws-bidens-disastrous-day.html

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https://twitter.com/Holden_Culotta/status/1757122313328153081

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Nikki Haley has been approved for secret service protection, but RFK Jr’s application is still pending (he’s filed about 3-4 times to ask for protection)

https://twitter.com/greta/status/1758629418266751300

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https://twitter.com/Holden_Culotta/status/1761043428027068733

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As of now, 50% in Michigan

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Signatures are accumulating fast. He is up 71% of the 21,422 of the signatures needed for Michigan

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Just remember, folks, typically you need about 1.5 times the amount of signatures required since a lot of them do get disqualified.

so he needs 63,455 signatures in az? he has 52,489 already, and the deadline is in 6 months or so

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RFK Jr's PAC has almost 83k signatures in AZ. The requirement is 42,303. Unless more than half of the signatures get disqualified for some reason during the validation process, he should be there in AZ

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RFK Jr’s PAC has obtained the signatures for South Carolina.

They are just 2,500 signatures away from meeting the 30k signature requirement for Michigan. It could happen by next week

https://twitter.com/Holden_Culotta/status/1764769655598563422

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He filed a lawsuit against Idaho for its early March 15th deadline about a month ago

https://ballot-access.org/2024/02/26/robert-f-kennedy-jr-files-brief-in-idaho-ballot-access-case/

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.idd.53977/gov.uscourts.idd.53977.1.0.pdf

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So why isn't Kennedy simply announcing a VP candidate within the next 10 days?

He offers detailed reasons in the lawsuit he filed against Idaho (pg 10-14):

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.idd.53977/gov.uscourts.idd.53977.1.0.pdf

1).  The inability to collect petition signatures until a vice-presidential nominee is named by an independent presidential candidate severely shortens both the deliberative and political process afforded to political party presidential candidates to select their vice-presidential nominee with the care properly afforded to that office

2). The inability to collect petition signatures until an independent presidential candidate names his or her vice-presidential candidate shortens the number of days permitted by statute for an independent candidate to collect the required number of valid petition signatures necessary to secure ballot access.

3). The state of Idaho, has no legitimate interest in requiring an independent presidential candidate to name their vice-presidential candidate to Defendant before the date required for political party chairs to name their vice-presidential candidates to Defendant

4) The collection of signatures to demonstrate the constitutionally permitted modicum of support ... has nothing to do with the person named by the independent or minor political party as their nominees for the Office of Vice President.

5). The requirement to name a vice-presidential nominee before an independent presidential candidate may circulate a petition to collect signatures ... imposes a severe burden on speech protected under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution because it prevents and shortens the time period available to engage in core political speech

6) The requirement to name a vice-presidential nominee, no later than March 15, 2024, when political party chairs are permitted to name their vice presidential nominees until September 1, 2024, is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause

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https://twitter.com/Holden_Culotta/status/1765202591774851341

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It would be really stupid by RFK Jr. to miss the ID ballot on March 15, just because he didn't name a VP candidate by this deadline (and as others have said, it could literally be any name).

He wants to vet his VP thoroughly, and maybe he wants to save his VP announcement for later so that he can “time” the media boost at the right moment

He can name anyone for Idaho, but maybe he feels it wouldn’t look as good politically to do so, naming some random person just to be on the ballot in ID

And given the alleged extension, his team likely had confidence that they’d win their lawsuit against Idaho

For those reasons, he didn’t simply pick a name as a running name to be on the ballot in Idaho

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Maybe Liz Cheney for No-Labels … she’s an anti-Trump Republican who’s available, and they shouldn’t have issues finding a Democrat to be on the ticket with her: she endorsed Democrats in 2022 when they faced election-denial Republicans, and she was appointed by Pelosi to be on the Jan 6 House investigatory committee. In her new book, Cheney praised Pelosi (and bashed McCarthy). If she says yes, Cheney would work for No Labels

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Maybe Liz Cheney for No-Labels … she’s an anti-Trump Republican who’s available, and they shouldn’t have issues finding a Democrat to be on the ticket with her: she endorsed Democrats in 2022 when they faced election-denial Republicans, and she was appointed by Pelosi to be on the Jan 6 House investigatory committee. In her new book, Cheney praised Pelosi (and bashed McCarthy). If she says yes, Cheney would work for No Labels

Zero chance of this. She knows it would benefit Trump.

I would figure it would hurt Trump, taking votes away from him (ie - the moderate /old school / KarlRove wing of the GOP party)

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Jenna Ellis is getting on the RFK Jr train

https://twitter.com/JennaEllisEsq/status/1765971325498048573

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RFK Jr’s pac has hit the signature requirement for Michigan. They should get to about 70-80k at least by the deadline to have a cushion . He is bearing down on 100k signatures in AZ (the requirement is 43k)

But don’t worry - the Biden supporters on this site insist that RFK Jr won’t be a factor

https://twitter.com/Holden_Culotta/status/1766560188780196212

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RFK Jr’s pac has hit the signature requirement for Michigan. They should get to about 70-80k at least by the deadline to have a cushion . He is bearing down on 100k signatures in AZ (the requirement is 43k)

But don’t worry - the Biden supporters on this site insist that RFK Jr won’t be a factor

https://twitter.com/Holden_Culotta/status/1766560188780196212

Doesn’t RFK take more votes from Trump than Biden?

It varies from poll to poll and from state to state. Some states he takes more from Biden, some states he seems to split between them, some states he seems to take more form Trump (particularly if you figure the Stein-West percentages are coming from Biden).

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RFK I see getting like 5% in the end.

Nope. He is polling literally triple that figure in 3-way matchup polls right now, and he has been in public eye for a whole year (so his number won't drop as "people get to know him"; they know him already). The time will come when you have to accept that RFK Jr will be a force in 2024's election