Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s desperate search for a Cabinet seat makes a lot more sense when you look at his long-shot campaign’s latest financial numbers.
Kennedy, whose national polling has crashed, refunded nearly $1 million to Nicole Shanahan, the Silicon Valley lawyer who joked she was picked to be Kennedy’s running mate solely due to the size of her bank account. The repayment is even more notable given that the campaign only has $3.9 million on hand and the debt it owes nearly equals the money in its bank account.
According to the filing, Kennedy’s campaign brought in just over $5.6 million last month and spent more than $7.2 million. Much of the money went toward trying to get Kennedy’s name on ballots across the country, reflecting his recent legal challenges in New York and difficulty amassing enough signatures to appear on the ballot in key swing states.
Kennedy’s campaign also owes roughly $3.5 million to private security executive Gavin de Becker.
Any third-party presidential candidate, even a Kennedy, faces a difficult task. Major party candidates like Trump and Harris have national, state, and local party organizations at their disposal. They also don’t have to exert much effort to qualify for the ballot in each state and the District of Columbia.
In contrast, candidates like Kennedy have to build their organization from scratch. And if that wasn’t costly enough, they must also finance the expensive effort to qualify for the ballot in each state. Kennedy’s effort in Arizona relied on an outside super PAC to try to reach the signature requirement for the key swing state, a move that raises legal questions, the New York Times reported.
Throughout the month of July, the Kennedy campaign spent upwards of $41,000 on expenses listed as “Ballot Access Consulting.” And this doesn’t include the more than $1.5 million it paid to Accelevate 2020 LLC, which specializes in “Ballot Access/Petition Consulting & Campaign Services,” according to its website.
Before the campaign’s numbers were made public, Shanahan said that the campaign was strongly considering closing up shop and endorsing former President Donald Trump.
Kennedy seems like he wants a job in the White House no matter who is in charge — he reportedly talked to Trump about overseeing healthcare and unsuccessfully sought a meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris. The Kennedy campaign did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
Trump has said he would consider adding Kennedy, an environmental lawyer now best known for his anti-vaccine advocacy, to his team. Kennedy was previously set to join the administration after the former president’s 2016 upset, but others in Trump’s orbit scuttled that move.
“You’re asking me a very unusual question, I haven’t been asked that question yet.” Trump told CNN when asked if he would put Kennedy in his administration. “I like him a lot, I respect him a lot, I probably would if something like that would happen.”
Legally speaking, both sides have to be careful about making a quid pro quo arrangement. It is against the law to “directly or indirectly” promise a future job or position “for the purpose of procuring support in his candidacy.”
A member of the Democratic Party’s most famous family, Kennedy mounted a brief primary challenge to President Joe Biden before abruptly switching his aspirations to a third-party run. He has since claimed that the modern Democratic Party is far different than the one his father, former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, sought to lead before he was gunned down ahead of the 1968 presidential election. Some of Kennedy’s siblings were harshly critical of his challenge against Biden and have dismissed his presidential campaign.
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