Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants America to "save the date"—not for a wedding, but to "save the country." That was the message in his video released Friday, in which the 69-year-old Democratic presidential candidate teased a major announcement that appears to involve plans to run as an independent candidate, reports ABC News. "A lot of Americans who had previously given up any hope that real change would ever come through the American electoral process have begun to find new hope in my candidacy," he says in his promotion. "I want to tell you now what I've come to understand after six months of campaigning: There is a path to victory. The hope we are feeling isn't some kind of trick in the mind."
Kennedy says he'll spill the big news Oct. 9 in Philadelphia, during which he'll speak about a "sea change in American politics." In August, Kennedy told Fox News he wouldn't run as an independent, because "no, I'm a Democrat ... [and] part of my mission here is to summon the Democratic Party back to its traditional ideals." That attitude seemed to shift after a September town hall in South Carolina, when Kennedy told ABC that he'd "wait and see" about a third-party run. "I'm hoping to run in the Democratic Party," he said. "If it's possible to have a fair election in the Democratic Party, I will run in the Democratic Party, and I haven't made any kind of plans other than that."
Mediaite seems quite sure that Kennedy's news involves an independent bid for the Oval Office, citing a text that's said to show plans of the Kennedy campaign to disseminate "attack ads" against the Democratic National Committee to "pave the way" for his announcement. "Bobby feels that the DNC is changing the rules to exclude his candidacy, so an independent run is the only way to go," a Kennedy campaign insider tells the outlet.
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The New York Times reports on Democrats' longtime fear of such a move, with concerns that RFK Jr. could pull votes away from President Biden and send them over to the presumed GOP nominee, former President Donald Trump. "But Mr. Kennedy has in recent months become far more popular with Republicans than he is with Democrats," the paper notes, adding, "It's not clear from whom Mr. Kennedy would draw more votes if he qualified for the ballot in key battleground states." (More Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stories.)
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