RFK Jr. Officially On New Mexico Ballot; Nevada Victory On Access Battle

 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Brooklyn on May 1. Photo by Jason Schott.

Independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign announced on Friday that he is officially on the ballot in New Mexico after Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver certified the Bureau of Elections has reviewed the submitted paperwork and determined it’s “in proper order.” 

Kennedy Campaign Senior Counsel Paul Rossi, said, “We appreciate Secretary Oliver’s efficiency in certifying the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket in New Mexico. It’s refreshing for a Secretary of State to avoid the partisan interference on display by election officials in Nevada and North Carolina.”

The ticket, in which Kennedy is running with Nicole Shanahan as his Vice Presidential nominee, has now officially made the ballot in ten states, with New Mexico joining Utah, Michigan, California, Colorado, Delaware, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Texas, and South Carolina.

There are 12 states that the Kennedy campaign has submitted signatures for ballot access - Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Alaska, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and now Nevada (more on that later in this report).

There are also five states that the Kennedy campaign has rounded up enough signatures for ballot access - Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, New Hampshire.

Overall, the Kennedy-Shanahan campaign has collected the signatures needed for ballot access in 27 states totaling 363 electoral votes - 67 percent of the 538 total electoral votes nationwide. 

KENNEDY SUBMITS SECOND ROUND OF SIGNATURES IN NEVADA: The Kennedy campaign also announced on Friday that it submitted the required signatures  for the second time in order to gain ballot access in Nevada after the Secretary of State attempted in March to keep Kennedy off the ballot.

“The voters of Nevada have, for a second time, demonstrated their enthusiasm and determination to place Kennedy on Nevada’s general election ballot,” Kennedy Campaign Senior Counsel Paul Rossi said. “The campaign will continue to vigorously defend the rights of Nevada voters to cast their ballots for Kennedy against the continued frivolous effort by the infirmed Biden campaign to strike us from the ballot.” 

More than 30,000 signatures were submitted on Wednesday after volunteers were forced to recollect signatures after Nevada Secretary of State, Democrat Francisco Aguilar, reinterpreted the state’s ballot access rules after the first round of petitioning had been complete. 

Nevada State Director Randall Hynes said in a statement, “Nevada voters have spoken again to put Kennedy on the ballot for President in November. Gathering signatures for a second time gave us a unique perspective. We learned many more Nevadans knew Kennedy was running. We also had hundreds of thousands of face-to-face conversations we would not have had otherwise.” 

In January, the Secretary of State’s office promptly approved Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination petition to circulate without naming the vice president on the petition, but after the campaign collected over 20,000 signatures - almost 10,000 over what's required to gain ballot access in Nevada - Aguilar announced in March his office was wrong, and petitions circulated without a Vice Presidential candidate's name were invalid. 

In June, the Kennedy campaign filed a federal challenge to Aguilar’s reinterpretation of Nevada’s ballot access rules, as the campaign put it, "challenging, on equitable estoppel grounds, the right of the Secretary of State to reject any petition page circulated in reliance of the Secretary’s instruction to circulate the nomination petition without the name of Kennedy’s vice presidential candidate recorded thereon."