WEST DES MOINES, Iowa – WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched a daylong campaign Saturday to gain access to Iowa’s presidential ballot as an independent candidate. Whether he succeeded is a pending question.
Kennedy attempted to qualify by holding a convention of at least 500 eligible voters from Iowa, representing at least 25 counties. Before closing the convention on Saturday, Chairman Dave Owen announced that 686 delegates representing more than 35 Iowa counties were in attendance, numbers that could not immediately be verified.
Kennedy and his allies are working to secure a vote in all 50 states as they mount a bid that has allies of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump worried about losing enough votes to swing the election. So far, Utah is the only state that has confirmed he is on the ballot.
A spokesperson for the Iowa secretary of state’s office confirmed before Saturday’s event that the office had been contacted by the Kennedy campaign and responded by providing this year’s publicly available guide for candidates.
As people filed into a music venue on Saturday, campaign team announcements blared over loudspeakers. The public was told there were 300 people at 2:36 pm central time; 400 about 20 minutes later. At 3:08 p.m., an employee announced that they had exceeded 500 people.
As he has done at other campaign events, Kennedy has drawn longtime fans to his message as well as people who are frustrated by the impending rematch of the 2020 election.
Jeremy Youngers of Waukee, Iowa, said he doesn’t like Trump’s Biden. Youngers has been listening to Kennedy’s podcast and his appearances on other podcasts for years and said he was excited when Kennedy announced his candidacy.
“This is an opportunity we have to really make a difference,” said the 42-year-old man, accompanied by his wife and two children.
Kristy Tierney, 45, drove about 170 miles from eastern Iowa to do her part to make sure voters have another option at the polls in November.
“All they need is 500 people to show up here to get Bobby on the ballot,” the Bettendorf resident said. “So I thought, you know, I can drive a few hours to make that happen.”
Tierney said she is fed up with the two-party system and voting against candidates rather than for them.
“I haven’t decided yet,” she said of her choice for president in November, “but I just think it’s important to have another option.”
Kennedy is the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the son of Robert F. Kennedy, former attorney general and U.S. senator. Both his father and uncle were murdered. Since then, he has built his own reputation as an activist, author and advocate for environmental causes.
Along the way, his activism turned into conspiracies and contradicted the scientific consensus, particularly on vaccines. Some members of his family have publicly criticized his views.
Kennedy chose Nicole Shanahan to be his pick for vice president, both leaving the Democratic Party to launch an independent bid for the White House.
Kennedy is gaining attention, with the help of his famous name, as an alternative to the major party candidates who have turned off American voters, even though no independent candidate has won Electoral College votes in decades. He took the stage to applause and cheers from a standing-room-only crowd, immediately addressing how his campaign — and the voters in the room who supported him — were rejected.
“If you want more of the same, you should vote for them,” Kennedy said of Biden and Trump. “Does anyone here want more of the same?” A chorus of “no” responded.
An anti-vaccine group led by Kennedy has a pending lawsuit against a number of news organizations, including the Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking steps to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. to COVID-19. Kennedy said goodbye to the group when he announced his candidacy for president, but is listed as one of its lawyers in the lawsuit.
Anne Charlson said she has Republican values and Democratic values. She eats organic foods and wants to choose what goes into her body, so she was “horrified” when the Biden administration talked about vaccine mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic. She found herself “on the same side as people who wanted gun freedom,” she said — it’s not something she believes in.
“Kennedy is the best of both worlds,” said Charlson, 58, of West Des Moines. “I really believe what he has to say.”
Both Republicans and Democrats have come together to criticize Kennedy, motivated in part by concerns that his candidacy could serve as a spoiler for Biden or Trump.
Iowa Republicans said Friday that Kennedy is a “distraction.”
“He is peddling his toxic conspiracy theories instead of talking about the problems facing Americans caused by the Biden administration,” President Jeff Kaufmann said in a statement. “Iowans want solutions, not distractions.”
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
