WaPo (“RFK Jr. won’t meet CNN debate requirement for ballot access“):
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly claimed that he appears on enough statewide ballots to qualify for next week’s debate between President Biden and Donald Trump and has threatened to sue CNN for not letting him on the stage.
But a Washington Post survey of state election officials found Kennedy is not on the ballot in several states where he has claimed he is — and he will not reach the requirement by Thursday’s deadline to qualify for the debate. The rules of CNN’s debate indicate candidates must appear on enough ballots nationwide to earn the requisite 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, along with earning 15 percent support in four national polls.
Election officials in Utah, Delaware, Oklahoma, Michigan and Tennessee have confirmed Kennedy will be on the ballot. Additionally, CNN has counted California and Hawaii, where Kennedy is the presumptive nominee of minor parties where the states have either not certified him or received paperwork. Those states add up to 100 electoral votes. Kennedy also has not yet met the polling requirement for the debate, though could if a qualifying poll is released before Thursday.
Kennedy intended to get on all 50 states’ ballots quickly as he sought to gain national attention that would come from sharing a debate stage with the two major-party candidates. Kennedy has pointed to his exclusion as evidence that he has been treated unfairly by the parties and the media.
His campaign has spent months gathering the signatures that states require for independent candidates — those not affiliated with a political party — to appear on the ballot in November. Those signatures are then verified by state election officials before the candidate is certified to appear. Kennedy can also appear on states’ ballots if he’s nominated by a minor political party that has already petitioned for ballot access. But many election officials told The Post they won’t certify those petitions or green-light minor party nominees for several weeks, making it impossible for Kennedy to check off the requirement in time for the debate.
Kennedy’s campaign has argued that Biden and Trump similarly should not qualify for the stage under CNN’s rules because they have not yet officially been selected as the presidential nominee by their respective parties. The Republican and Democratic nominating conventions are in July and August, respectively. But CNN has said that because Trump and Biden are their respective parties’ presumptive nominees, and major-party candidates don’t have to petition states for ballot access, both satisfy the electoral college criteria for the debate, according to CNN.
Given the realities of our political system, this is a good outcome. Kennedy has zero shot of winning the election and his presence in the debates and on the ballot would simply take away exposure from the two plausible candidates.
That said, Kennedy is polling somewhere around 10 percent nationally in surveys that include his name. He’s far and away the most serious third-party candidate in almost three decades. (Ross Perot was included in the 1992 debates but failed to meet the threshold in 1996; he nonetheless got 8 million votes, 8.4% of all voters.) Given how unpopular Biden and Trump are, it’s quite likely that he could considerably improve his standing were he allowed to go toe-to-toe with them on the debate stage.
Further, his camp is right to complain that the rules are stacked. He has to be officially approved for the ballot in enough states to win the contest before the states approve candidates for ballot access. It’s literally impossible. Meanwhile, even though Biden and Trump are technically not yet their parties’ nominees, they’re given a pass because everyone knows they will be. And, of course, they don’t have to jump through any hoops to qualify for ballot access because the Democratic and Republican nominees automatically qualify.
