Under 1980 Precedent, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Will Qualify for Post-Election Public Funding if he Gets Over 5%

Posted on by May 11, 2024

In 1974 congress passed a law allowing public funding for presidential candidates. It said parties that poll at least 5% for president may receive public funding after the election is over. They also get an equivalent amount for the next presidential election.

In 1980, independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson got 6.7% of the popular vote. Before the election, the Federal Election Commission determined that if he got over 5%, he would qualify for public funding, even though he was an independent, not the nominee of a new or minor party. Anderson went into debt during the 1980 campaign, hoping that he would receive over 5% of the vote and then receive public funding to pay off his campaign debts. His gamble paid off.

Most polls nowadays are showing that Kennedy will get more than 5% of the November 2024 vote.

Comments

Under 1980 Precedent, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Will Qualify for Post-Election Public Funding if he Gets Over 5% — 58 Comments

  1. I don’t think he’ll get 5%. And I have no problem whatsoever with a member of an entitled political family going into debt.

  3. Hillary did get the most votes. She got 65,853,510 and Trump got 62,984,824.

  4. Polls said she would be president no matter what. They were wrong, but Richard Winger refuses to admit that.

  5. As in 2016, Kennedy may not get 5%, but there is a good chance that he deprive the winner of a majority of the popular votes.

  6. As in 2016, Kennedy may not get 5%, but it is very possible that he will deprive any candidate of getting 50% of the popular vote.

  8. Hoping the Retard Party can poll at least 5%. Depends on how many pet and Puerto Rican votes they can get.

  9. Sometimes polls underestimate minor party and independent presidential candidates. Ross Perot was only getting 9% in polls in October 1992, but he ended up with 19%.

  10. Perot was polling at around 35% at one point. Polls are not very accurate and almost always overestimate third parties and independents.

  11. IMO, a third party candidate just getting enough votes to deprive any candidate of getting a clear majority has had an impact. Any candidate who squeaks in with a 48% plurality of the popular vote doesn’t really have a popular “mandate”

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  16. Way too early for polls, but the way I see the campaign shaping up, Trump wins, Kennedy comes in second, Biden dead last. All well into double digits. Because winner takes all for electors, Trump carries about 40 states, even if only winning with a plurality. Laugh now if you want, but bookmark this and look back when the votes are counted.

  19. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2024/05/11/congress-debt-commission/73657845007/

    America’s debt tops $34 trillion, but a commission to address it appears dead in Congress
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    Washington — For Mike Johnson it was effectively a Day 1 priority.

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    “The consequences if we don’t act now are unbearable,” he said, echoing warnings from his predecessor and other House Republicans.

    More than six months later, the proposal appears all but dead, extinguished by vocal opposition from both the right and the left.
    ————-
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  20. Rick, the polls that showed Perot at 35% were in June, before he dropped out. He dropped out in the middle of July so there were no more polls until after he re-entered the race on October 1, 1992. None of the October 1992 polls showed him higher than 9%.

  21. At this point in 2016, Gary Johnson was also polling well in excess of 5%, often over 10%. I think even Jo Jorgensen had a few hitting that mark. Nader did in 2000, too. Polls that include third party candidates almost always overstate what they’re actually likely to get, at least when they’re down in the ~10% or less range. And RFK isn’t going to have 50-state ballot access on top of the usual third party fade. It’s very unlikely he’s actually going to hit 5%.

    For the same reason, current polls that show him hurting Biden more than Trump should be taken with a grain of salt. What’s true when he’s polling at ~10% isn’t indicative of which direction his support is softer and so which way more of it will bleed away before he ends up down in the low single digits. Dem-leaning voters peel away from him more when they actually hear anything about him and what he’s saying. In the end, he’ll marginally hurt Trump more because that’s where his more dedicated supporters are lined up with his more right-leaning message.

  22. @Observer
    Which state or states will he miss? According to May BAN chart, he didn’t miss any yet. He paid the OK fee and maybe already has the sigs for NY. He got a third party nomination in CA.

    Surely he will do better than Gary Johnson’s 3%.

  23. Arizona, not that idiot AZ fool, is pretty draconian. 121,750 signatures by the middle of August?

  24. Not all polls overstate, some understate – Perot after dropping back in, Ventura for gov. Debate inclusion and financial parity or near parity leads to a situation where an increase rather than a drop off is eminently possible. It could go either way. Perot was the last one with near funding parity. The rest is up to the campaigns and events between now and then. A Biden collapse seems highly likely, creating an opening for Kennedy to plausibly slide into second and even conceivably home run , but probably not. That would take Trump collapsing as well, which is much less likely than Biden, and both at the same time is less likely still – but not vanishingly unlikely.

  30. Kennedy can win, but Trump is much more likely to. Biden can’t. A lot of people don’t see that yet, but they will.

  31. I think there is a chance that RFK, Jr. can clear the 5% target come November.

  34. Oooh, are we playing predictions? Here’s one: the Republicans will win the election but the victory will go to the Democrats (repeat of 2020), then either just before or just after the elections the Democrats will replace Biden with a different ventriloquist dummy, while some mentally ill scapegoat will be induced to give Trump the Czolgosz special.

  35. Joe: better yet hanging from a gallows after a fair trial and being found guilty of treason.

  36. Big difference from 2020. The cheat would have to be much bigger, thus smell fishy to a much larger, and more importantly than that, critical mass of people. It would be the last straw, and it would be much worse for the derp state – fake news – tech – treason industrial complex – globalist – crony corporate axis of evil than letting Trump get in office without violence.

    Trump wins either way, and will be much more transformative than in the first term. It would be even quicker if they are dumb enough to push it as far as actually claiming Biden actually wins again, but the collateral damage will be horrible. So, despite where we need to faster, I’d rather avoid a civil war.

    I’m pretty sure the evildoers realize civil war will be worse for them too, so they won’t push it quite that far. Sure, they will still cheat plenty, but only take it as far as making it look much closer than if votes were counted honestly.

    Whether through election or war, Trump will be in control of the executive machinery of government by some point next year. And due to what he and others learned over 8 years, will be able to do a lot more good with his second term than the first .

    Hide and watch.

  37. I hope you’re right, but I doubt it. We thought 2020 was the last straw at the time, but then it just fizzled out and went nowhere. (Not least because Trump didn’t really do jack to seek justice in any meaningful way.)

    If they do concede a Trump victory this time around, the chances of him getting Czolgoszed are even greater. And the alternative route to presidency you mention, would leave Trump in that same state, if you catch my drift.

  38. Nope. Cities can’t feed themselves. Explaining the rest would take too long. Believe me now or believe me later. Hide and watch.

  39. There probably won’t be any debates, and if there are, RFK won’t be in them. He’s only averaging at 8.0% and has been consistently trending downward. https://elections2024.thehill.com/national/biden-trump-rfk-general/ For comparison, Johnson was at 8.4% in the average cited by CPD in 2016 and that was much later in the cycle, in mid-September.

    It’s true when you have a third party candidate up into actual major candidate status in the higher double digits, polls can be off either way, like they can be for the Ds and Rs. But not at the level RFK is actually polling. There are generally applicable reasons for that, prompting respondents with a third name of a minor candidate inherently boosts that candidate’s poll result. But also none of three-way polls reflect what any voter will actually see on the ballot anywhere. You also have Stein in most states, West in some states, whoever the LP nominates in probably around 45-ish states, Terry as the Constitution Party in a couple dozen or more, and the usual handful of different Socialist parties in a single number of states each. In no state will there only be Trump, Biden, and Kennedy on the ballot. Kennedy performs even lower in polls that do offer any other alternative candidates.

  40. I disagree. Trump will debate Kennedy. Trump will not be in COPD debates.

    Biden will not be in any debates. Right now, he claims he will debate Trump. But he’ll find an excuse to get out of it. The excuse might be Kennedy being included. It might be a preliminary conviction in the sham Manhattan trial, even though there is zero chance it will hold up on appeal if there is one. It could be any number of other things or combination of things.

    The real reason will be that if Biden debates, he will not be able to cover up his severe and rapidly accelerating senile dementia. But of course he’ll pretend it’s something else.

    After the Trump-Kennedy debate or debates, Kennedy passes Biden in the polls for 2nd. That probably won’t be until September at the earliest.

    Right now, there’s no reason for Kennedy to worry about polls. Over the summer,he’ll probably do enough of a rollout to technically qualify for COPD, but maybe not. It doesn’t matter, because Trump will not be in those despite of course qualifying, and Biden would not debate Kennedy.

    Johnson didn’t come close to having the financial resources of Kennedy. But, knowing how to deploy those in proper time sequencing is important. At the moment, it would be inefficient to waste a bunch of money to boost Kennedy on way too early polls.

  42. Pat Buchanan got federal aid for his 2000 campaign as a result.. However, the party fractured at the nomination convention and Pat was ill for most of the election season, so it was not maximalised by any stretch.

  43. Perot got 19% in 1992, and 8.5% in 1996. In 1996 he wasn’t allowed to debate.

  44. Trump and the RNC have been very clear ever since he dropped out of the Dem primary that they view Kennedy (correctly) as more of a threat to them. Of course he’s not going to debate him. And millions of dollars won’t do him any good when he has no competent campaign staff to spend it in a way that’ll do anything. How much did his now-running mate burn on that dumb nepotism-themed Super Bowl ad that did nothing to reverse his declining poll numbers?

  45. Not only is he not going to beat either major party nominee (lol), it wouldn’t be terribly surprising if his ballot access goes poorly and he doesn’t even end up in third place nationally.

    His actual dedicated fan base is tiny, smaller than the voter base both the LP (even its terminal decline) and the Greens have. Name ID alone only gets you soft support in the form of vague awareness, people projecting dissatisfaction with both Trump and Biden onto a candidate they know next to nothing about and so is effectively a blank slate. That’s what he has, and that’s what fades hardest down the final stretch when normal people actually tune in, which they mostly haven’t yet. It doesn’t stick around when people find out he’s not just generic third option, he’s a real person who believes all sorts of crackpot things. And chose an even less serious running mate solely for her money.

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  47. You’re way off. He will take way more votes from Biden after Biden suffers a historic implosion. He’ll easily make the ballot in every state and DC. Biden will be beset by a “summer of love” that will put both 1968 and 2020 to shame.. On top of already being the most unpopular incumbent president seeking another term since Herbert Hoover and being the most obviously incapacitated – and rapidly getting worse – since late 2nd term Wilson.

    Like 1912, his party base will split between him and Kennedy. Trump will smell blood in the water. He will debate Kennedy and relegate Biden to 3rd. Trump will come back to reclaim victory, like Grover Cleveland.

    There will be a small opening for Kennedy to actually win. The odds are heavily against it. But. Biden getting away with claiming another win after the next 6 Months would fool so few people, the illusion of fair elections would be impossible to maintain.

    Biden 6 months form today will make Biden right now look like a very popular, capable, well liked, mentally astute president.

    But, he will achieve his stated goal of unifying America – in hating, or at least highly disliking him. The left and right will agree on one thing if nothing else – FJB.

  48. Actual dedicated Kennedy base..hard to say how big or small. They are more effective at getting volunteer signatures, at least.

    Even if they’re small, it doesn’t matter. There are already many and growing numbers of Democrat base voters who will not vote for Biden. Or Harris, if Biden dies. Some of them will vote for Trump, but some of them will never vote for Trump. Some will stay home, but many will still vote. Stein and West will pick off a few, but too few to really matter.

    The Democrats won’t nominate Newsome or Whitmer or anyone else. Enough Democrat activists would be pissed off about a (part) black woman being passed over that that would not work internally. Yet Harris is somehow even more unpopular than Biden. And no, “Michelle” Obama will not save them either.

    After this long, hot summer, Kennedy will be best positioned to claim a lot of support that has nowhere else to go. Trump will realise this, and elevate Kennedy by debating him, at the same time putting the final knife into Biden. Biden will be 3rd, a la Taft.

  50. There’s only room for, at most, one corpse in the debates. It’s being held open for the propped up corpse of Beijing Joe. Kind of like weekend at bernies of a weekend lasted for 4 years.

  51. First-rate minds read and listen. Asinine minds make predictions.

  52. Assessing chances is crucial to getting through life. Of course, we all read and listen. Getting predictions correct frequently shows balancing things that are ongoing , information sources and lessons of history correctly. Patterns of being wrong in certain ways show what needs to be taken more into account.

    Oversimplification of categories is one of the biggest problems. We are all at times asinine and first rate, in fact, generally both in different ways simultaneously. Being first rate is not necessarily exclusive of being asinine. They probably tend to coincide more often than not. Being more observant than most tends to lead to hubris and temptation to test limits to see what can be gotten away with, which is often a trap. Incorrect predictions are a good way of maintaining some humility, checking elaborate analysis against real world feedback to refine further analysis.

  54. If you take too long, many wrongdoers get away with it, and or remain free to target more victims. Start with execution, work backward to Indictment. Those whose guilt is in doubt can be posthumously exonerated. Much better than to let much larger numbers of people not suspected of any crime be extrajudicially executed or otherwise punished for life by criminals.

  55. DBW-

    TRULY STONE AGE PRIMITIVE

    ANY *EVIDENCE* OR THROW SOME DEAD ANIMAL BONES INTO A BOWL — TO SHOW GUILT ???

    SEE OLDE TRIALS BY WATER/ FIRE IN OLDE MIDDLE DARK AGE.

  56. Despite common misconception, it’s coddling criminal scum that’s cruel and way past barbaric to non criminals. Not just to victims, but to their families, the whole community of potential victims, economic life and social connectivity and therefore emotional and mental health – the entire area is very negatively impacted, particularly the most vulnerable – poor, minorities, women, children, elderly, sick, crippled, etc.

    Tourists, business visitors and anyone who doesn’t know their way around is disproportionately targeted, making economic trade and hospitality depressed. Hospitals are overtaxed with trauma from crime, leaving fewer resources for any other kind of health issue and increasing preventable early deaths and lowered quality of life – indirect crime effects beyond immediate victims.

    When children grow up with street violence normalized, they tend to become violent. Domestic violence mushrooms. Disputes among neighbors are more likely to escalate to physical violence. Children learn early that violence is how problems get resolved, leading to more physical bullying and fights among kids. Kids start to accumulate records of disciplinary action for fighting. Often the first steps to a violent crime prison recidivism adulthood and prison as retirement home.

    Police officers and neighbors know the usual suspects who are a small percentage of the people even in the least safe neighborhoods. Even if a suspect isn’t guilty of the crime they are accused of, chances are extremely high they have committed many other heinous crimes they got away with.

    Far from being “primitive” in some negative sense, being extremely tough on crime is far more logical and effective in increasing the quality of life for far greater numbers of people who are not career criminals or violent antisocial psychopaths.

    But even among those, it is well known that swift, sure and severe punishment is effective at preventing crime. Being criminals themselves, organized crime bosses know how criminals think. That’s why petty street crime is very rare in the neighborhoods where they raise their families. Those areas are extremely safe when compared with demographically similar areas nearby.

    Police and courts should treat criminals just like organized crime treats petty criminals in the vicinity of their families. It’s much more humane than the perverse “enlightened” fairness to criminals, which is very unfair to everyone else. The evidence that coddling criminals is punishing the innocent on a large scale is simply ignored because the “enlightened” know better and real world evidence that contradicts their so called logic is swept under the rug.

    Results are simply irrelevant to them. They live in well protected, well off areas. They don’t really have to deal with the practical effects of their moronic theories very often or much at all. It’s really the intellectual retards who are responsible for such horrible policies – professors, writers, lobbyists, politicians, soft on crime judges, higher up police bureaucrats, news distorters – who are a far more pernicious class of predators against the innocent, far worse than petty or organized criminals.

    Their crime against humanity and nature is so well organized and slick it’s above the law and barely even noticed. Instead of being reviled,they are looked up at as exemplary social leaders and moral beacons worthy of respect and emulation. In reality, they’re the worst sociopaths and psychopaths of them all.

  57. Since the major parties are no longer interested in claiming the campaign money, I’ve lost tract of how much a 5% vote would earn for the candidate. So, let’s say RFK, Jr. does get just over 5% of the National vote, about how much money would his campaign be awarded? My guess is that he’ll receive 7-8.5% of the popular vote Nationally. The remaining minor parties & candidates will get another 3.5-5.5% leaving 87-88% for Trump & Biden with Trump winning both the Electoral College 300+ Electoral votes & the Popular vote by less than 1,500,000 votes.

  58. It depends on the percentage he ends up with. I forget the particulars, but it starts at 5% and ends up with parity with what’s awarded to the big two at something like the 25% level. My current best guess is that’s about the percentage Biden will end up with. Kennedy, perhaps in the 30-35% range. Trump, 40-45. The rest scattered (Stein, Terry, libertarian if human and not nota, West, DeLaCruz, etc).

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