Robert F Kennedy Jr said on Monday he would contest the US Presidential Elections as an independent candidate, a move that could shake up a tight election by siphoning votes from the two two-party contest.
The move is likely to impact the 2024 race, which is most likely to be a rematch between President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump. However, a third-party hopeful taking even a few votes from either Biden or Trump in expected to swing states and prove disaster for the candidates.
Kennedy, a long-time anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and a darling of the right-wing US media, is expected to harm Trump more than Biden. The 69-year-old former environmental lawyer was a Democratic nominee, but he quit the race to run as an independent.
Who is Robert F Kennedy Jr?
Robert F Kennedy Jr is a member of one of America’s most famous political families. Kennedy Jr is the son of former US Attorney General Robert F Kennedy and the nephew of former President John F Kennedy.
Kennedy’s father and uncle both were assassinated. Robert F Kennedy was shot dead just after midnight on June 5, 1968 in the kitchen pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
Kennedy Jr was born in January 1954 in Washington DC and is a law graduate from Harvard University. He later studied at the University of Virginia Law School.
After his studies, he was sworn in as an assistant district attorney for Manhattan, but he resigned after he failed his bar exam in 1983. The next year, he joined the environmental group Riverkeeper as an investigator.
Kennedy began his own quest for the White House earlier this year by entering the Democratic Party’s nomination race. However, he never presented a significant challenge to President Joe Biden.
More Popular Among Republicans
While Kennedy has long identified as a Democrat and frequently invokes his late father, Sen Robert F Kennedy, and his uncle President John F Kennedy on the campaign trail, he has built close relationships with far-right figures in recent years.
Polls show far more Republicans than Democrats have a favourable opinion of Kennedy. He has gained support from some far-right conservatives for his fringe views, including his distrust of Covid-19 vaccines.
While he was running a primary bid with Democrats, Trump said of Kennedy, “I like him a lot. I’ve known him for a long time.”
However, Trump allies, now aware of the risk that Kennedy could pull votes away from Republicans, have begun circulating opposition research against Kennedy designed to damage his standing among would-be conservative supporters.
Support from Far Right
Kennedy has been vocal distrust of Covid-19 vaccines and repeated a false claim that the recent death of baseball legend Hank Aaron was linked to the vaccine. He had previously posted misinformation about the flu vaccine, after which he was blocked from Instagram.
He also ignited a firestorm of criticism over claims that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” at Caucasians and Black people, while Ashkenazi Jews and the Chinese were spared.
Embraced by conspiracy theorists on the far right such as Alex Jones and Trump’s former national security advisor Michael Flynn, Kennedy has claimed that AIDS might not be caused by HIV and that wifi causes cancer and “leaky brain.”
He has blamed antidepressants for school shootings and said chemicals in tap water could make children become transgender.
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