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Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his campaign Friday, citing "media censorship," a “sham Democratic primary," and “continued legal warfare” the DNC has waged on him to keep him off the ballot.
LEARN MORE: RFK Jr Suspends Campaign; Criticizes DNC's 'Legal Warfare' Against Him and Trump
On these particular claims, there is not much to fact check as IVN has extensively covered all three of these topics, but it is worth noting that Kennedy is not the only candidate dealing with these methods of systemic oppression.
There are other independent and third-party candidates in 2024 and recent history that have tried to take on the two-party system, only to endure the same partisan tactics to diminish and even end their campaigns. A few of these candidates are still in the race with every intention of making it to November.
Continued Legal Warfare
It is already an expensive endeavor for independent candidates to run for president. It would be even more expensive for a candidate who did not already have the Kennedy name or established name ID.
On top of the costs associated with obtaining ballot access, including establishing state-based campaigns and gathering signatures, Kennedy needed more just to fend off the DNC and allied special interest groups in court.
During the press event in which he suspended his campaign, Kennedy said he was told when he launched his independent presidential bid that he would need “a team of lawyers and millions and millions of dollars to handle all the legal challenges.”
It wasn’t a matter of “if,” but “when.” It was even reported by NBC News in March that the DNC was ready for a multi-state strategy to keep or remove independent and third-party candidates from the ballot.
At the same time, Biden and other Democrats railed against Trump, calling him a threat to democracy.
Kennedy survived legal challenges in Hawaii, Nevada, North Carolina, New Jersey, and Maine. However, every time a campaign has to defend its right to be on the ballot, it hits that campaign where it hurts the most – money and resources.
In July, the New York Times reported that Kennedy’s campaign had been drained to the point that it could not hold events or “traditional campaign priorities.” A separate fund was created by allies to deal with legal challenges.
This is the typical experience of any independent or third-party campaign trying to take on the two major parties. It becomes a war of attrition where the wealthier and larger establishment parties try to bleed outside competition of their resources.
Even a candidate with the financial pedigree of a Kennedy can struggle to take on the two major parties. The DNC continues to incorporate the same legal strategies against third-party candidates like Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party and Dr. Cornel West.
West recently won a case in Michigan that put him back on the state’s ballot.
"This ruling is not just a legal victory—it is a moral victory for everyone who believes in the sanctity of the democratic process,” West said in a press release. His running mate, Dr. Melina Abdullah, added that their campaign would “not be silenced by procedural barriers.”
The emphasis on democracy cannot be understated. The Democratic Party developed an entire campaign strategy in which it declared itself the defender of democracy against Trump.
At the same time, it has done everything it can to prevent more choices from being on the ballot.
While West scored a victory in Michigan, he lost a challenge in Pennsylvania. A commonwealth judge sided with the secretary of state, who rejected the candidate’s paperwork because he failed to provide affidavits for many of his presidential electors.
It is an example of how independent and third-party candidates are expected to follow different rules. While major-party candidates don’t have to submit their list of electors until after their conventions, independent candidates have to file the list with their candidacy paperwork.
Stein recently won a legal battle in Wisconsin to remain on that state’s ballot, which state Green Party Co-Chair Michael White called a “mark of fear by the Democratic Party” that has motivated her supporters.
She may not have the same level of wealth as Kennedy, but she does have something that Kennedy does not, and that is the support of a political party with a national organization and state-specific organizations.
Even still, candidates outside the major parties can always expect to be challenged because their placement on the ballot is seen as a threat. At the presidential level, the focus is on DNC challenges, but the Republican Party engages in these tactics as well.
For example, in 2020, the Texas Supreme Court rejected an effort by the state Republican Party to remove 44 libertarian candidates from the ballot in a single election cycle.
Media Censorship
Consider this: When was the last time Fox News or CNN or MSNBC covered an independent or third-party candidate in a way that focuses on that candidate’s policies on any given issue? How about a one-one-one interview?
And not just in a way that might benefit one party or the other – but a way that would introduce and educate voters on who that candidate is and what they stand for? How much do voters know about Kennedy? Stein? West? Libertarian nominee Chase Oliver?
The national media apparatus exists within the same two-party machine that actively tries to keep independent and third-party candidates off the ballot. The US political system has been designed at every level to endorse two sides – and only two sides.
A person has to be a Republican or they have to be a Democrat – anything else is a spoiler. Kennedy decried his treatment by the mainstream press, calling it censorship by DNC-aligned news groups.
“When a US president colludes with or outright coerces media companies to censor political speech, it is an attack on our most sacred right of free expression, and that is the very right upon which our other constitutional rights rest,” he said on Friday.
He added that this type of censorship occurred during the Democratic presidential primaries, when the DNC blocked debate and largely silenced would-be challengers to President Joe Biden, including himself, but he also said there was a “near perfect embargo on interviews.”
Kennedy notably had a one-on-one interview on CNN earlier in 2024, but his visibility in most national news outlets has been sparse – something other independent and third-party candidates experience each election cycle.
In 2016, NPR published an op-ed, in which writer Elizabeth Jensen acknowledged that many voters want to hear more about candidates that don’t have a D or R next to their names – which the piece calls a “chicken-and-egg scenario.”
The excuse often heard from media personalities is they don’t cover third-party and independent candidates because they do not have the polling numbers to show viability. However, these candidates can’t bolster polling numbers without coverage.
Jensen wrote that in 2000 then senior Washington editor Ron Elving said, “The timing of third-party coverage is an issue every four years.”
The timing is always curious to say the least. There was a time when national polling showed RFK close to being eligible for the presidential debate stage, and going into 2024 his polling exceeded 20 percent.
However, according to Kennedy, in the 16 months between the launch of his campaign and the suspension of it, he only had 2 live interviews when accounting for ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, and CNN combined.
He said these networks, instead, ran a litany of “hit pieces” to smear his candidacy and his name.
He added that the networks colluded with the DNC to keep him off the debate stage. He filed a complaint with the FEC alleging collusion between both major parties and the media to bar him from the June presidential debate – and the FEC partly agreed.
READ MORE: RFK to FEC: CNN Illegally Colluded with Biden, Trump Campaigns
But this media treatment goes beyond Kennedy. In 2016, Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson got increased media coverage for his now infamous “Aleppo moment,” during which he could not immediately identify the Syrian city.
All of a sudden, Johnson, who had gained ground in national polling, got more coverage for the slip-up than he did at any other point in the election cycle. While Johnson tried to make light of it later, the media’s negative coverage tanked his campaign.
How many people heard the name Jill Stein before Election Night in 2016? How many people knew she had already run as the Green Party nominee in 2012 before Democrats lambasted her as the reason Hillary Clinton lost key Midwest battleground states in 2016?
How many people – even those who regularly follow political news – could name the 2020 presidential nominees for the Libertarian and Green Parties? Stein may be back in 2024, but she was not the nominee in 2020.
The focus here are mainstream news outlets. The news outlets that shape and drive the national political narrative. The outlets that act as an echo chamber for one political party or the other.
It is an undeniable fact that mainstream news outlets suppress and outright censor candidates who do not fit in the two-party narrative. These outlets take it upon themselves to decide for voters who is a viable candidate.
“The duty of a free press [is] to safeguard democracy and to always challenge the party in power,” Kennedy said to reporters. “Instead of maintaining that posture of fear and skepticism toward authority, your networks have made themselves government mouthpieces.”
Kennedy suspended his campaign after months of railing against the two-party duopoly and endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump. He didn’t outright end his campaign, but said he would drop his name from the ballot in states in which he’d be a spoiler.
