Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is still in the presidential race, so let’s take a look at his lasting campaign that has withstood turmoil from both sides of the political scale.
Campaigning on the idea of being an independent candidate, RFK seeks to draw the attention of the middle section of voters who find themselves at odds of choosing between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. Could this third-party candidate prevail come election day?
RFK’s current efforts to get on the ballot in 50 states has cost him millions but has proved somewhat successful. He already is on the ballot in California, Hawaii, Utah and Michigan. He has also collected the necessary signatures and met the threshold for access in a handful of other states including Idaho, Nebraska and Iowa to name a few. Getting one’s name on the ballot is a huge first step, but many challenges are on the road ahead.
In March, RFK announced his official running mate for his campaign: Nicole Shanahan. Shanahan is a 38-year-old lawyer and tech-savvy entrepreneur.
She attended Santa Clara University of Law and spent time studying abroad in Singapore while pursuing her law degree. Shanahan’s mother was born in China and emigrated to the U.S. where she eventually met her husband.
Shanahan also established Bia-Echo — a private foundation that invests in areas such as women’s reproductive longevity and equality, criminal justice reform and promoting a healthy and livable planet.
Despite other vice-president candidates such as Aaron Rodgers, Shanahan was chosen as the official vice president candidate for RFK on March 26. At 38 years old, she’s a young addition to the traditionally older vice presidents.
“This election is about returning the government to the people. I’ve sat in conversation with Americans who represent the majority: people who are sick of the duopoly and who want commonsense government. Americans that have stopped defining themselves as strictly right or left,” Shanahan wrote in a post on X.
Shanahan has spoken out against international funding — specifically to Ukraine. Her pro-American sentiment bleeds through her campaign. A focal point of her campaign is putting America’s concerns first, and that the White House should be focused on national security first before focusing on outside factors.
“I remember as a 12 year old waking up in downtown Oakland and realizing our car had been broken into and the $1.50 I was relying on to buy a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich had been stolen,” Shanahan wrote in a post on X. “Watching our leadership today send $60B to Ukraine while waving another nation’s flag is gut wrenching. What about Americans?”
Like RFK, Shanahan has also controversially opposed the COVID-19 vaccine. She takes a strong stance on the matter — arguing that she has safety concerns about the vaccine.
“Studies have been showing a link between myocarditis, pericarditis and mRNA vaccines for years. Over 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts. Recalling products for safety concerns is supposed to be normal – why is this such a radical idea?” Shanahan wrote in another post on X.
Her claims have been disputed by health officials including Amesh Adalja, a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, who told The Daily Beast that “there’s no basis to recall the Moderna COVID vaccine” and “the COVID-19 virus itself is more likely to cause myocarditis than the vaccines are.”
On May 1, RFK took center stage on national media to make an announcement: President Joe Biden should drop out of the race so that RFK can stop former President Donald Trump from winning.
At the presentation in Brooklyn, RFK challenged Biden to withdraw from the race if Biden was predicted to do worse than Kennedy in the polls. His presentation essentially argued that the candidate who has the best chance of winning should face Trump come election day.
No matter if RFK continues to November, one thing is for certain: RFK is causing disruption and shifting polls for the other two candidates. One should keep a pulse on developments in the campaign to see what happens in November.
