Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has qualified for the general election ballot in Michigan, a crucial battleground state in the 2024 election, his campaign said on Thursday.
Kennedy, along with his running mate Nicole Shanahan, will appear on the Michigan ballot as nominees for the Natural Law Party, which has already filed all the necessary paperwork to make the ballot, Team Kennedy said in a press release. The independent candidate is pitching himself to voters as a viable alternative to Biden and Trump, while the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees are set to face off in a rematch of the 2020 election.
“He’s the most qualified candidate in the modern-day history of America,” Natural Law Party Chairman Doug Dern said of Kennedy. “We welcome Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Shanahan to the party.”
The Natural Law Party, founded in 1992, seeks to “Solve problems at their basis by bringing individual life, and our national policies, into greater harmony with natural law through proven educational programs; natural, preventive health care; renewable energy; sustainable agriculture; and other forward-looking, prevention-oriented programs,” according to its website.
Michigan marks the third swing state where Kennedy will appear on the ballot, according to his campaign. Team Kennedy said he has also qualified for ballot placement in Nevada and North Carolina, two states where Trump currently posts a slight lead over Biden in the polls.
The 2024 race in Michigan could play a pivotal role in deciding who will be sworn in on January 20, 2025. Democrats said earlier this month that Michigan, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, is one of three states that the party is counting on to deliver a 2024 win for Biden.
Kennedy’s ballot access in Michigan, however, potentially throws another obstacle in the president’s path to winning the Great Lakes State, where Biden’s re-election is already being threatened by a significant number of Muslims who oppose his support for Israel in its war against Hamas. In the Michigan Democratic primary, Biden was opposed by more than 100,000 voters (13.2%) who voted “Uncommitted.”
Currently, Trump leads Biden by more than three points in Michigan, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. In a five-way race, adding in RFK Jr., along with Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West, Trump is less than two points ahead of Biden nationally, according to RCP.
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Last month, Kennedy chose Shanahan, a lawyer and Democratic donor, as his running mate. Shanahan, the ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, supported President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign against Trump and also donated $150,000 to the campaign of leftist Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon and at least $300,000 to a campaign led by a coalition of nonprofits and activist groups to pass a voter referendum “to divest from incarceration and policing” in L.A. County.
Trump blasted Kennedy as “the most radical Left candidate in the race” but added that his candidacy “is going to be taking votes from Crooked Joe Biden, which would be a great service to America.”