MESQUITE, Nev. — Two voters filed a lawsuit in state court Thursday arguing that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not a political independent under Nevada law and should be disqualified from voting in the Silver State.
Senators Uwe Rockenfeller and Francisco Morales named Kennedy, his running mate Nicole Shanahan and Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar as defendants.
They want the Kennedy-Shanahan combination removed from the state's ballot.
According to the lawsuit, after Kennedy finished challenging President Biden in the Democratic primary, he “is simultaneously seeking the nominations of at least six separate political parties in six other states while claiming to be an 'Independent' candidate for the election of President of the United States.”
These parties “have their own policies and philosophies,” the lawsuit states. For example, California's American Independent Party “has a tarnished history of supporting racist presidential candidates, such as former Alabama Governor George Wallace.”
Kennedy is not an independent under state law because he accepts votes from California organizations, as well as the Natural Law Party in Michigan and the We the People Party in Hawaii.
He also allegedly filed his Nevada qualification petition without nominating a running mate — another state requirement — and “made no attempt to amend” the petition, instead filing a lawsuit over the issue.
Nevada law defines an independent candidate as “a person who is registered without affiliation with a political party” and provides that “a person who proposes to run as the candidate of a political party may not register as an independent candidate.”
Morales, the vice chair of the Nevada Democratic Party, and Rockenfeller, who describes himself as a “registered Republican,” accused Kennedy and Shanahan in court filings of “attempting to disrupt the vote by orchestrating a scheme to appear on the Nevada ballot after the Democratic Party rejected his candidacy.”
Neither Rockenfeller nor Morales would comment on the lawsuit, but the Nevada Independent reported it is linked to the state's Democratic Party, which also did not respond to a request for comment.
But Aguilar's office records that Rockenfeller contributed $42,500 exclusively to Democratic candidates, officeholders and related political action committees over the past six years.
The “registered Republican” has paid a total of $20,000 to former Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak over two election cycles and $2,000 to Aguilar in 2023, but has paid nothing to state GOP candidates.
“I have been a registered Republican for more than 30 years and have always donated to candidates of both parties that I believe in,” Rockenfeller said through a spokesman.
Removing Kennedy and Shanahan from the Silver State's presidential race could further sway the outcome in what is already a crucial battleground state.
Former President Donald Trump lost Nevada to Hillary Clinton by 27,202 votes in 2016, then lost to Biden by 33,596 votes four years later.
But a FiveThirtyEight poll conducted in Nevada on June 21 showed Trump leading Biden by 2.8 percentage points, with Kennedy receiving 9.4% of the vote, which could be decisive in a close race.
The Kennedy campaign, the Trump campaign and the Nevada Republican Party did not respond to The Washington Post's requests for comment.
