History suggests that a third-party candidate is unlikely to win the 2024 presidential election, but Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s efforts to get out the vote in North Carolina and across the nation raise questions about how his presence will affect the November race.
The last time an independent won a presidential election was in 1789, when George Washington was elected. Third party candidates have a poor chance of winning in North Carolina. No third party candidate reached 1% support in the state in 2020.
Despite what history might suggest, third-party candidates continue to run, and some point out that their voting positions could take votes away from the two major parties and affect the outcome of the election.
RFK Jr.'s party, “We the People,” has enough verified signatures to qualify for the ballot in North Carolina, and his campaign has collected 18,693 valid signatures, according to a petition search from the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
Christopher Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University and director of the university's Public Policy Institute, said RFK Jr., 70, who initially ran as a Democrat before switching to independent status in October, is a former environmental activist and outspoken critic of vaccines and has attracted more media attention than other third-party candidates.
Cooper said his political background — his uncle was former President John F. Kennedy and his father was former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy — and his actress wife, Cheryl Hines, may have contributed to this.
“Everything about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks to the attention and interest,” Cooper said.
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Cooper said in a state like North Carolina where the election is decided by a slim margin, anything could affect the outcome.
“I think in a tough state like North Carolina, anything can shake things up,” Cooper said.
But how much impact will RFK Jr. have on the outcome? Meredith College polling director David McLennan said in an April poll report that his influence would probably be minor.
“The demographic groups most supportive of Kennedy – young voters, black voters and moderate voters – typically support Democrats like Joe Biden,” McLennan said in the poll's report. “However, Trump's lead over Biden has shrunk to 2 percentage points, within the poll's confidence interval. Joe Biden has improved his approval rating among self-identified Democrats, and with just under 200 days until Election Day, the Kennedy effect may be seen as modest.”
Some worry about his influence. In an opinion piece in the Asheville Citizen-Times, Buncombe County Democratic Chair Cathy Klein urged voters not to vote for Kennedy, saying “voting for him could have disastrous, unintended consequences.”
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Cooper said Kennedy's current strong support is likely to drop significantly as November approaches, possibly as voters become more aware of the importance of close elections and learn more about the candidates.
Cooper said that generally, the more voters know about a candidate, the less they like him or her.
“It's easy to assume they'll know the answer to a problem when they don't really know the problem,” Cooper said.
North Carolina is just one in a growing list of states where RFK Jr. has gathered enough signatures to petition, including New Hampshire, Utah, Nevada, Hawaii and South Carolina. His campaign is actively collecting signatures in several other states.
The State Board of Elections must approve the county commissioners' signatures before RFK Jr. can officially appear on the Tar Heel ballot.
