Poll workers process ballots for the 2020 presidential election at the Multnomah County elections office in Portland, Oregon, Nov. 2, 2020.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his losing presidential campaign. But that wasn’t enough to stop Kennedy’s fans from putting him on the ballot in Oregon.
On Monday, three days after the independent presidential candidate pledged his support for former President Donald Trump, members of a newly formed political party in Oregon nominated Kennedy anyway.
This means that Kennedy and his current running mate Nicole Shanahan will be on the ballot in Oregon as candidates of the “We The People” party.
“It’s basically a nuisance,” said Mike Cully, who ran Kennedy’s newly established Oregon operation before it closed last week.
While it is unclear whether Kennedy will attract more voters who would otherwise support Trump or Harris, Cully said the candidate’s placement on the ballot is designed to “steal votes from the Democratic Party, which he has clearly disassociated himself from.”
Not that voters in Oregon are hearing much about Kennedy’s ideas. “We’re not holding volunteer meetings anymore,” Cully said. “We’re not actively campaigning. The campaign itself in Oregon is dormant.”
Kennedy said on Friday that he wanted to withdraw from the election in the ten or so states that could go to Trump or Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the fall. However, this strategy was not entirely successful. The swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin have declared that he must remain on their ballots.
Kennedy also said last week that he would continue to press in states like Oregon, where the outcome of the presidential election is not in doubt. The state has not voted for a Republican president since Ronald Reagan’s re-election in 1984.
Cully said the ultimate goal is for Kennedy to receive more than 5% of the vote nationally, which he believes will pave the way for the We The People party to be more successful in the years to come.
“We are preparing for the future,” he said. “People are obviously disillusioned with the two-party system right now.”
Kennedy is the son of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, both Democrats. He began his presidential bid as a Democrat before becoming an independent candidate last October.
He claimed that the Democratic Party had sabotaged his presidential candidacy. And on Tuesday, Trump’s campaign announced that Kennedy would become a member of his transition team if the Republican was successful in November.
