Can Kennedy Win as an Independent?

Polls Show Voters are Ready

By Daniel Kovalik, The Kennedy Beacon

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s announcement last week in Philadelphia that he would run for president as an independent candidate resonates with American voters, and the Democratic and Republican parties know it.  

As the Associated Press (AP) recently reported, both major parties, painfully aware of the unpopularity of their two chief candidates, are starting to panic.  The AP writes, Kennedy’s bid “threatens to weaken both major parties as Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican former President Donald Trump tighten their grip on their parties’ presidential nominations . . . . A heightened sense of concern is spreading especially among Democratic officials.”  

This “heightened sense of concern” is justified. A recent Rasmussen Reports poll found that “[i]f Biden is the Democratic presidential candidate in 2024 and Republicans nominate former President Donald Trump, while RFK Jr. runs as a third-party candidate, 33% of Democratic voters say it is likely they would vote for Kennedy, including 14% who say it’s Very Likely.”  The same poll found that “[t]wenty-five percent (25%) of all Likely Voters say that, if Kennedy were a third-party candidate against Biden and Trump in 2024, it’s at least somewhat likely they’d vote for RFK Jr., including 10% who say it’s Very Likely they’d vote for Kennedy. Fourteen percent (14%) of Republicans and 28% of unaffiliated voters say it’s at least somewhat likely they’d vote for RFK Jr. as a third-party candidate.”  

Fresh out of the gate as an independent candidate, prior to any debates or primaries, and with over a year to go until the 2024 election, it’s clear that Kennedy already poses a serious challenge to both parties and could win the presidency.  This strong showing is due both to Kennedy’s popularity – he is viewed favorably by 49% of likely voters – and the US electorate’s disenchantment with the two-party system.

A Declaration Of Independence

During his historic October 9 speech in Philadelphia, in which he declared his independent candidacy, Kennedy aptly referred to George Washington’s warning about political parties in his 1776 Farewell Address: 

While political parties may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Washington predicted that political parties would fall prey to the interests of those in power, resulting in national turmoil and undermining the common good.

“Washington’s dire prediction has certainly come true,” said Kennedy in Philadelphia. “In making an independent run for president, I take inspiration from the one other president who was not a member of a political party. That president was George Washington,” he continued. 

Given the nation’s divisive political climate, the emergence of an independent candidate is timely. A September 23 Gallup poll reported that 25% of voters identified as Republican, 26% identified as Democrat and a full 47% identified as independent, a clear signal that voters are fatigued of the two-party system and seeking an alternative.

Other polls reveal similar results. A July 2023  Quinnipiac University poll found that nearly half of voters would consider a third-party presidential candidate.

Kennedy’s decision to run as an independent is the right call at the right time.

Kennedy’s Independent Run Has Strong Historical Precedent

Political parties emerged in the United States shortly after the nation's founding. The Federalist Party, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the Democratic-Republican Party, led by Thomas Jefferson, were established in the 1790s. The 1820s saw the emergence of the Democratic Party led by Andrew Jackson, and the Whig Party which formed in opposition to Jackson's presidency. The Republican Party became a political force in the mid-1850s. It was formed in opposition to the expansion of slavery into new territories. Abraham Lincoln ran and won as the Republican presidential candidate in 1860.  

The 1990s brought Ross Perot, a businessman and philanthropist, into the political spotlight. Perot ran as an independent candidate in the 1992 presidential election, advocating for fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction. He garnered nearly 19% of the popular vote, the strongest showing for a third-party candidate in recent history. 

Kennedy’s independent run follows in the footsteps of these other insurgent candidates and is a timely response to the obvious failures of the current two parties and their inability to solve the serious issues confronting the American people.

Kennedy is vocal about the deeply-rooted corruption of both parties. His speech in Philadelphia emphasized the current paralysis of the two-party system with its self-interested politicians who neglect the needs of the public. “Locked in their habitual debates,” said Kennedy, “the two parties are often blind to common sense solutions.”

In declaring his independent run, Kennedy declared independence from the system: 

We declare independence from the corporations that have hijacked our government. We declare independence from Wall Street, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Ag, the military contractors, and their lobbyists. We declare independence from the mercenary media that fortifies corporate orthodoxies, and urges us to hate our neighbors and fear our friends. We declare independence from the cynical elites who betray our hope and amplify our divisions. And finally, we declare independence from the two political parties and the corrupt interests that dominate them, and the entire rigged system of rancor and rage, corruption and lies, that has turned government officials into indentured servants of their corporate bosses.

The corruption Kennedy references cannot be denied.  Both parties’ chief candidates are in hot water for alleged misdeeds.  President Joe Biden is facing allegations that he misused his position as vice president to enrich his family with millions of dollars from Ukraine, Russia, Romania and China.  Donald Trump is facing 91 criminal counts in four separate indictments involving a multitude of corruption allegations.

Meanwhile, Congressman George Santos (R) faces 10 felony counts, including charges for allegedly engaging in credit card fraud against his own donors, and long-time Senator Bob Menendez (D) has been  charged with receiving bribes (including gold bars and envelopes full of cash) in return for political favors and conspiring to act as a foreign agent for Egypt.  Some of these allegations may even border on treason.

Kennedy is correct. We must break the two parties’ corrupt control of power.
The American people know it, and are ready.