PHOENIX (AP) — Some voted for Donald Trump, others for Joe Biden. A couple of had by no means needed something to do with politics earlier than they heard Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on a podcast or YouTube video.
Lined up outdoors a Phoenix wedding ceremony corridor tucked between a freeway, a railroad monitor and a U-Haul rental middle, the lots of of people that turned out Wednesday to listen to Kennedy communicate shared little in frequent ideologically. What united them was a deep-seated mistrust — of the media, of firms and particularly of the federal government — and a perception that Kennedy is the one individual in politics prepared to inform them the reality.
“I like that he talks to us like adults,” mentioned Gilbert Limon, a 48-year-old pharmacist from Phoenix. “He tells you the vast majority of what you could know. Whereas I really feel like (different politicians) simply provide you with bits and items to attempt to match their agenda. I’ve had sufficient of that.”
Voters should not enthusiastic a few Biden-Trump rematch, and options like Kennedy or the No Labels third-party motion, which might sometimes be longshots, see a gap. Kennedy‘s look in a 2024 battleground state highlights how he may affect the upcoming election in tough-to-predict methods. Allies of each Trump and Biden have expressed considerations that Kennedy‘s unbiased bid may pull votes from their candidate in subsequent yr’s anticipated normal election rematch.
Candidates from outdoors the Republican and Democratic events hardly ever make a splash, if they’ll make the poll to start with. However third-party candidates don’t normally carry Kennedy’s well-known final identify or his present community of supporters.
Kennedy made the cease in Phoenix as a part of his laborious push to get entry to the 2024 presidential poll as an unbiased candidate, which he figures would require him to gather not less than one million signatures throughout the nation. Aides mingled within the crowd accumulating filling up his petitions to qualify in Arizona.
Poll entry for unbiased and minor-party candidates is an costly and complex course of, with every state setting its personal guidelines for entry. Campaigns normally rent folks to gather signatures and infrequently want a small military of attorneys to problem poll entry guidelines and battle again towards others attempting to maintain them off the poll.
American Values 2024, a brilliant PAC supporting Kennedy, has pledged to spend $15 million to assist him get on the poll in 10 states. Kennedy secured a victory in Utah, the place the lieutenant governor pushed again the deadline to qualify from January to March after Kennedy filed go well with.
Kennedy is a member of one of many Democratic Social gathering’s most well-known households – his father was the legal professional normal for his uncle, President John F. Kennedy. However he’s extra lately constructed nearer ties to the far proper, the place his conspiratorial and isolationist views are at dwelling.
Enriqueta Porras, a 52-year-old doctor from Phoenix, voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Trump in 2020. She mentioned she’s torn in regards to the third-party conundrum. She’d wish to vote for somebody she believes in like Kennedy but additionally needs to ensure Biden loses and will vote strategically.
“I don’t need to be that individual,” Porras mentioned, “however I really feel like there’s so much at stake and which will simply should occur.”
One of many nation’s most outstanding anti-vaccine activists, Kennedy has lengthy had a loyal following of people that reject the scientific consensus that vaccines are protected and efficient, they usually kind a spine of his presidential marketing campaign.
A company that Kennedy based, Youngsters’s Well being Protection, at the moment has a lawsuit pending towards a variety of information organizations, amongst them The Related Press, accusing them of violating antitrust legal guidelines by taking motion to determine misinformation, together with about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines.
Rigorous research and real-world proof from lots of of hundreds of thousands of administered pictures show that COVID-19 vaccines are protected and efficient. Deaths brought on by vaccination are extraordinarily uncommon and the dangers related to not getting vaccinated are far larger than the dangers of vaccination.
Among the many dozen Kennedy supporters who spoke to the AP in Phoenix, many share his view that firms, particularly drug firms, wield an excessive amount of energy.
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