(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Kennedys were once considered synonymous with the Democratic Party, but a lot has changed since the days of former President John F. Kennedy and his attorney general brother, Robert Kennedy.
Now, President Kennedy’s nephew and Bobby Kennedy’s son, Robert Kennedy Jr., will reportedly be running in the 2024 presidential election as an independent.
Mediaite broke the story about RFK’s impending announcement Friday, citing an apparent internal campaign text message that publication reviewed.
“Kennedy’s campaign machine is now planning ‘attack ads’ against the Democratic National Committee in order to ‘pave the way’ for his announcement in Philadelphia about running as an independent,” Mediaite reported.
A Kennedy campaign insider reportedly told Mediaite that “Bobby feels that the DNC is changing the rules to exclude his candidacy so an independent run is the only way to go.”
Kennedy has been embraced by conservatives in recent years for his staunch opposition to tyrannical COVID-19 policies, such as lockdowns, mask mandates and vaccine mandates.
He has also joined Republicans in fighting the “censorship-industrial complex”—the network of government and state-sponsored non-profit organizations that pressure tech companies to censor content.
Recent polls have revealed that many Democrat voters would vote for Kennedy Jr. if he ran as an independent in the 2024 presidential election.
One such poll from Rasmussen Reports earlier this month showed that 57% of probable Democrat voters planned to support Biden in the Democratic primary and 25% for Kennedy.
That pull came on the heels of a shocking poll released over the weekend by ABC News that suggested former President Donald Trump may have a 9 point advantage over current President Joe Biden among voters in a head-to-head matchup.
However, many of those surveyed in the Rasmussen poll said they had a favorable view of Kennedy and indicated they would be willing to vote for him should he run against both Biden and Trump.
If Kennedy ran as an independent, 33% of Democrat voters said it was likely they would vote for him; 14% said it was very likely.
“The fact that President Biden is so unpopular that fully a third of Democrats would vote for an independent candidate in the general election underscores the importance of running a fair and competitive primary election,” said a spokesperson for Kennedy’s campaign.
“If the DNC fails to do that, it will likely be saddled with a weak candidate who lacks the popular appeal to defeat the Republicans—whether or not there is a strong third party candidate in the race,” the spokesperson added.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
