Dem
51
GOP
49
Everyone knows that plaintiffs who are looking for a friendly judicial audience engage in venue shopping, since a Fifth Circuit judge is going to be much more amenable to some arguments, while a Ninth Circuit judge is going to be more amenable to others. Well, if you're an independent presidential candidate, the same basic concept applies. It's not so easy to get on the ballot in all 50 states, so there's wisdom in first focusing one's resources on the states where one is most likely to have success.
So it is that the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaign announced that it has just qualified for its first ballot. And the state in which he did it is exactly the one we would have expected, namely Utah. Yes, we know the Kennedys have deep roots in Massachusetts, but that also means that residents of that state know full well the difference between Robert F. Kennedy Sr. and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And most of them are not buying what Junior is selling.
Utah, by contrast, is perfect. First, it's pretty easy to get on the ballot there; a candidate only needs 1,000 signatures. Further, there is no solid-red state that is more Trump-skeptical than Utah is. LDS Church members don't care for Trump's personal history, his hostility towards the less fortunate, or his general approach to life. Recall that in 2016, independent Evan McMullin got 21.54% of the vote there. If RFK Jr. can peel off a few more Republicans than McMullin did (admittedly, a tall order since McMullin is LDS and RFK is not), and if he gets some sizable chunk of "we're not going to win anyhow, so let's try to block Trump from winning" Democratic crossover votes, then Utah is one of the two states where we can squint our eyes and just maybe imagine him somehow winning. It's not likely, but it's not impossible. Oh, and the other state is Alaska, incidentally.
The Kennedy campaign says that it is now onward and upward, and that the other 49 states and D.C. are next. We shall see what happens; it is likely that they can get on the ballot in a couple dozen more states, but anything above 35 or so is a very tall order, because it's expensive to get enough signatures in the really big states. That said, RFK Jr. has now officially planted his flag, which means he's going to be a part of the conversation, albeit likely a very small one, through November. (Z)