American Values 2024 (AV24), the Super PAC supporting Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s presidential candidacy, announced its intent to pursue ballot access in pivotal states independent of the campaign. The targeted states include Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New York, and Texas. These ten states represent approximately half of the required signatures nationwide. AV24 is embarking on an independent ballot access campaign and stands ready to address all requisite tasks that it may undertake independently and within the bounds of the law, which further solidifies the organization’s commitment to ensure Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s path to the White House. This list may change upon additional legal review.
AV24 is expecting to spend between $10M-$15M to tackle this monumental task in these ten states with the legal expertise to analyze each state’s requirements, process, and implementation.
“We have chosen to pursue these critical states, some of them battlegrounds, due to the complexity of the state election codes and the volume of signatures necessary to achieve ballot access. A successful ballot access initiative ensures Robert F. Kennedy, Jr as an option for president of the United States,” said Deirdre Goldfarb, Special Counsel Ballot Access.
Tony Lyons, co-founder of AV24 and President of Skyhorse Publishing, said, “The Super PAC is also preparing for inevitable attacks from both sides of the aisle. Democrats and Republicans are panicked about Bobby’s surging popularity among black voters, Hispanic voters, all voters under 45, and anyone concerned with ending DC corruption. Kennedy’s numbers have shocked the uniparty elites to their core. They will work overtime in a futile attempt to keep Bobby off both the ballot and the debate stage. They clearly don’t understand what people worldwide have realized—that we are in the middle of a revolution and the will of the people, their desire for politicians who will fight for the middle class against the greed and corruption of oligarchs, is unstoppable. Bobby is a populist polling at 24%, which equates to 40 million people who would vote for him if the election were held today, and it’s just the very beginning.”
Ballot access in New York State is difficult without the support of either the Democratic or Republican party. 45,000 valid signatures are required in order to run for statewide office (Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller), or for President.
A few NYS minor parties and organizations have recently attempted to get on the ballot, but were unsucessful last year. Statewide ballot access in New York became more difficult after then Governor Andrew Cuomo convinced the state legislature to change the Election Law and required minor parties to secure 100,000 votes on their line in order to continue to keep their automatic ballot access.
The changes came at the time that actress-activist Cynthia Nixon was challenging Cuomo for Governor on the Working Families Party line. Minor political parties in New York including the Libertarian Party and Green Party did not meet the threshhold and lost their automatic ballot access.
A combination of volunteers and paid staff are required to collect enough signatures for RFK Jr. or any independent Presidential candidate. 45,000 valid signature are required, but as many as 750,000 signatures are needed to avoid a petition challenge.
