All the most hopeful political strategists I read have one big caveat as they contemplate the upcoming election: the third party threat. That could throw a monkey wrench into everything and usher in another Trump flukey win. I’ve written before about No Labels, which is nothing more than a grift of dumb big donors. But this one is something else and it’s kind of terrifying:
The super PAC supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential bid is narrowing its ballot access campaign focus to seven states — including crucial battlegrounds that will determine the outcome of the presidential election.
American Values 2024 will now prioritize helping to get Kennedy on the ballot in Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New York and Texas, according to plans first shared with POLITICO.
Half of these target states were decisive in the 2020 race, and won by now-President Joe Biden by narrow margins. The promotion of a third-party candidate in these battlegrounds could change the pathways for victory for the major parties’ nominees — even if Kennedy only garners single-digit support next November.
“The seven states we will initially focus on have a total of 183 electoral college votes and some of the highest populations in the country,” PAC Founder Tony Lyons said in a statement.
The super PAC originally planned to also work on gaining ballot access in Indiana, Colorado and Nevada but have dropped them from the list after advice from their counsel. But American Values 2024 will still dedicate between $10 and $15 million to the smaller list of states.
A statement outlining the new plan also said it’s confident that Kennedy could win a contingent election, a possible scenario where no presidential candidate gets 270 electoral college votes. Under such a scenario, congressional delegations from each state cast votes to choose the next president.
“Kennedy has two clear pathways to the White House,” Lyons said. “We will do everything we can, while working closely with our attorneys and without coordinating with the campaign, to make sure that the uniparty fails in any efforts to derail the peaceful, populist revolution that he represents.”
There hasn’t been a contingent election since 1836. It is also widely believed that a contingent election would result in the Republican nominee winning the presidency because there are more state delegations with a majority of Republican members than Democratic ones.
It is nothing but sabotage, a sick con to help elect Donald Trump. And Kennedy and his people are so deluded that if they were to succeed they would feel zero remorse, and insist that it’s not their fault because Biden just wasn’t good enough. (Democrats are required to win huge to overcome certain narcissistic egos in its broad coalition.) That’s how these people think.
There is something wrong with him. He’s not normal. And the people working for him are craven opportunists. I wish I knew what could be done but I’m not sure there’s anything except working overtime to educate the people who might vote for him about the stakes. He’s polling at 13 percent or so and that probably won’t hold up. But if he’s on the ballot in those battleground states he doesn’t have to have more than a fraction of that to sabotage the election.
I won’t even talk about Jill Stein, who will definitely be on the Green Party ballot. She was pivotal in 2016 and I’d imagine between her and RFK Jr, they could siphon off enough votes in those battlegrounds to really cause some chaos. And chaos benefits MAGA. It’s what they plan for. It’s what they live for.