Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s campaign says it has collected tens of thousands of voters’ signatures, which it believes will be more than enough to put him on Colorado’s election ballots as an independent candidate for president this November.
A small parade of Kennedy supporters hauled about a dozen boxes of paperwork, plus a banner and signs, from the state capitol to the Secretary of State’s office in downtown Denver on Thursday.
The campaign said those boxes contained more than 30,000 signatures from all around Colorado. State officials will now review those signatures. Kennedy will need at least 12,000 to be found valid, with a certain amount coming from each Congressional district, to secure his spot. That count will be completed by Aug. 1.
The signatures would allow Kennedy to run as an independent in Colorado. At the same time, the state’s Libertarian Party is attempting to get Kennedy on the ballot as a Libertarian. But that effort has been hampered by infighting in the party.
A spokesman for the national Kennedy campaign didn’t immediately respond to a question about whether Kennedy would ultimately appear as an independent or Libertarian in Colorado.
Kennedy was a Democrat until recently.
The campaign’s supporters on Thursday included a mix of disenchanted Democrats and Republicans, as well as those who vote more often for third-party candidates, especially Libertarians.
Wyatt Carr, 30, said he had voted for former president Barack Obama in 2012, former Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson in 2016, and former president Donald Trump in 2020.
Carr is volunteering for Kennedy now because Trump had “failed at what he said he was gonna do. He got beat by the swamp,” he said.
Carr’s story is similar to others shown in polls. Kennedy is drawing significant support from voters who went from Democrats to Trump and are now looking for another option. That trend could ultimately be harmful for Biden, who may need to win back some of those voters, The New York Times reported in May.
A recent Rocky Mountaineer poll found Kennedy and his running mate Nicole Shanahan had support from 12 percent of respondents in Colorado. The pollsters noted that surveys tend to overstate support for third-party candidates. But the poll, which is meant to provide guidance for progressives, notes that Kennedy earns a “significant chunk of the vote” with unaffiliated voters, white women, white non-college voters and younger voters.
Combined with possible support for the Green Party ticket, the poll found that Biden was still leading in Colorado, but with less than half the vote. He had the support of 42 percent of respondents — compared to 36 percent for former President Donald Trump.
The state Libertarian Party’s executive director, James Wiley, said he wanted to see Kennedy run a “fusion” candidate, allowing him to appear on multiple ballot lines or to be listed as both Libertarian and unaffiliated. A state spokesman said that is not allowed under state law.
Editor's note: This article was updated July 11, 2024, with comment from the Secretary of State's office.
