Americans are going to elect their next president on November 5, 2024. The winner will serve a term of 4 years, starting in January 2025.
The US presidential campaigns started with 15 candidates, including nine Republicans, four Democrats and two independents, but most of them dropped out of the race, according to BBC.
Although the incumbent President Joe Biden, Democratic, and the former president Donald Trump, Republican, have secured their parties’ nominations. There are three other candidates running for president who can change the balance and draw off support from the two main rivals.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.), son of Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy, 70 years old, is a former environmental lawyer and author.
He is an outspoken anti-vaccine activist and an advocate of vaccine conspiracy theories. In March, he chose Silicon Valley lawyer and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.
Earlier this year, he entered the race as a Democrat, but in October, he declared he would run as independent.
“The Democrats are frightened that I’m going to spoil the election for President Biden. The Republicans are frightened that I’m going to spoil it for President Trump. The truth is, they’re both right,” he said at a rally in Philadelphia.
RFK Jr. has faced sharp criticism for promoting discredited conspiracy theories, such as connecting childhood vaccines to autism. He also denounced steps to mitigate Covid-19.
Despite his little chance of winning the presidency, Kennedy’s populist economic message has influenced many voters. In many surveys, he came in third place behind Biden and Trump, raising questions about whether he might draw off more support from them.
One of the challenges he faces as an independent candidate is securing enough signatures to get on the ballot in different US states. According to his campaign, RFK Jr. has enough signatures so far to qualify for the ballot in half a dozen states.
Cornel West
The 70-year-old vocal progressive activist and author, Cornel West, is currently a professor of philosophy at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
He announced his candidacy in June 2023 as a member of the People’s Party. Then he said he would seek a nomination from the Green Party. Later on, he announced he would run as an independent candidate.
His campaign has paid considerable attention to a socialist platform involving public healthcare and cutting US defense budget. He chose Melina Abdullah, an academic and member of the board of directors of the Black Lives Matter Grassroots organization, as his vice presidential nominee.
While West has been ignored by other candidates and secured minimal support in most polls, some data has shown that his candidacy has drawn off 1% or 2% of voters from Biden.
West faces the same challenge of securing enough signatures to access the ballot, but with much less money than RFK Jr.
Jill Stein
A physician and environmental activist, Jill Stein, 73 years old, is running as a candidate for the Green Party. She was the Green Party’s presidential nominee in 2012 and 2016.
Stein launched her campaign with a video attacking both political parties as posing a “danger to our democracy”. She said: “Democrats have betrayed their promises for working people, youth and climate again and again. Republicans don’t even make such promises in the first place.”
Yet it is not clear how much support she could draw off from Biden, but she has been a spoiler in the past. In 2016 election, 1.6 million Americans voted for her. Some Democrats blamed her for taking support from Hillary Clinton in key battleground states and ultimately helping Trump win.
The Green Party will confirm its nomination in July. Its website says it is on the ballot in at least 20 states.
What Do Voters Say?
Although both Biden and Trump have secured their respective parties’ nominations for president, most voters say they would like to replace at least one of them on the ballot.
In a survey conducted by Pew Research Center on April 8-14, 2024, 49% of voters say they would replace both Trump and Biden with different candidates, if they had the ability to decide the major party candidates for the 2024 presidential election.
The same survey found that voters overall have little confidence in either candidate across a range of key traits, including fitness for office, personal ethics and respect for democratic values. 65% of voters have little or no confidence that Biden is physically fit to be president, while 59% lack confidence in Trump to act ethically.
In a Reuters/Ipsos poll in March, about 22% of registered voters in the poll said they had not picked a candidate, were leaning toward third-party options or might not vote at all. The poll found that 16% of respondents would pick RFK Jr. Kennedy’s share of support didn’t change in the April poll.
According to Reuters, even a small portion of that support could be significant in the battle ground states, which allocate all their electoral votes to the candidate with the highest number of individual votes.
