Does RFK JR have a shot at the Presidency?

The question is self-explanatory: does Robert F. Kennedy Jr have a realistic path to the presidency come November of 2024. It is a question that many people have. If you were to ask RFK JR, he would tell you that he is the most capable person in beating the most powerful elephant in the room: Donald J. Trump. But, can he convince enough state voters in order to gain any electoral votes? In my mind, it is going to be a tough road.

Before I go on, I feel that I have to give a small background story on RFK JR. He is the son of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy. The aforementioned two men tragically lost their lives when they were assassinated. The president was felled by a sniper shot in Texas in 1963, while the senator was shot when passing through the kitchen of a hotel in 1968. With a story like this, you could imagine that any surviving family members would be severely affected. So, where did this leave RFK JR?

During his youth, RFK JR struggled with many difficulties, including drug abuse. In spite of that, he managed to become an attorney, and worked on note-worthy causes, such as environmental pollution, and human-rights issues. Which begs the question of why he would want to switch to become a politician just like his father.

In April of 2023, RFK JR registered for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. However, due to difficulties in being unable to debate the incumbent president, Joe Biden, RFK JR decided to leave the party. On November 9th of the same year, he announced his candidacy as an independent.

Now that I have covered the preliminaries, I can go ahead and state that RFK JR has a VERY difficult path ahead of him. As an independent, he has to gather thousands of signatures in every single state in order to be in the ballot. Plus, historically, the Electoral College has tended to favor either the Democratic Party, or the Republican Party.

As an independent, RFK JR has encountered challenges on many state-ballot registrations for the presidency. For instance, as of this writing, I read that he is being challenged in New York for not really being a state resident since he has a home in California. In spite of that, many other states have accepted RFK JR to be in the November ballot of 2024. I am going to pretend, for just a moment, that he manages to successfully register in EVERY single state for the presidential ballot. Of course, now he has to face the prospect of not being able to receive any electoral votes.

In my younger years, I was under the impression that this country, the United States of America, practiced elections based on the popular vote. In other words, everybody’s vote actually counted. However, I came to learn that we, collectively, vote for other people that do the actual voting for the presidency. I am referring to the Electoral College.

The Electoral College is prescribed in Article Two of the Constitution of the United States. In its present form, the number of electors from each state is comprised of the number of their senators (2), in addition to their amount of members in the House of Representatives. A presidential candidate needs 270 electoral votes out of 538. With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, which split their votes based on proportionality, all other states have a winner-takes-all based on majority gain. On top of that, since the 20th century, the majority of the states have tended to vote either Democrat or Republican. As a reminder, RFK JR is an independent.

Do independent candidates have a realistic chance at becoming president? In 1992, Ross Perot managed to snatch almost 20 million popular votes. Then, in 1996, he got eight million popular votes. The one thing that he never got was a singular electoral vote. Even, though, Mr. Perot got millions of votes, he did not managed to get enough in a single state to win anything. He did not managed to make a dent on the states that do split the electoral votes, Maine and Nebraska. It seems that the two-party system has a total advantage over any independent candidate.

I would like to think that we live in a system where each voice counts towards making an important decision, such as electing the president of the United States. However, I respect the reality of our current situation, and cannot envision a path where Robert F. Kennedy JR can get 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. The math is not there.

This is just an opinion piece, and I could be proven completely wrong. RFK JR may just go the distance, and convince enough electors to vote for something other than red or blue.