RFK Jr. is anticipated to drop his Democratic major bid and launch an unbiased or third-party run

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is anticipated to announce Monday that he’ll drop his Democratic bid for president and run as an unbiased or third-party candidate, including a brand new wrinkle to a 2024 race at present heading towards a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

Kennedy’s marketing campaign has teased the announcement within the days main as much as a Monday afternoon speech in Philadelphia. In a current video, Kennedy mentioned there’s corruption “within the management of each political events” and mentioned he desires to “rewrite the assumptions and alter the habits of American politics.”

The video got here shortly after Mediaite reported he deliberate to launch an unbiased bid.

A member of one in every of America’s most well-known Democratic households, the 69-year-old Kennedy was working a long-shot Democratic major bid however has higher favorability rankings amongst Republicans. It’s unclear whether or not GOP help would translate to a common election when Kennedy would even be working in opposition to Trump, the early front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination. Allies of each Biden, a Democrat, and Trump have at instances questioned whether or not Kennedy can be a spoiler in opposition to their candidate.

Biden’s allies to this point have dismissed Kennedy’s major marketing campaign as unserious. Requested for touch upon his potential unbiased run, a Democratic Nationwide Committee spokesman responded with a watch roll emoji.

Monday’s announcement comes lower than per week after the progressive activist Cornel West deserted his Inexperienced Get together bid in favor of an unbiased White Home run. In the meantime, the centrist group No Labels is actively securing poll entry for a yet-to-be-named candidate.

Kennedy has spent weeks accusing the DNC of “rigging” the social gathering’s major in opposition to him and threatening that he may want to contemplate options.

In marketing campaign emails and movies, he blasted the DNC’s choice to not host debates between Biden and different candidates and railed in opposition to the committee’s plan to present South Carolina quite than Iowa or New Hampshire the leadoff spot on the first calendar this election cycle.

“In the event that they jam me, I’m going to take a look at each possibility,” he mentioned in September at a New Hampshire barbecue held by Republican former Sen. Scott Brown.

Far-right and anti-vaccine influencers near Kennedy even have despatched robust alerts on social media suggesting he ought to or will go away the Democratic Get together. Final month, Joseph Mercola, an influential anti-vaccine physician who’s allied with Kennedy, ran a ballot on X, previously generally known as Twitter, asking if Kennedy ought to stop the social gathering.

Whereas Kennedy has lengthy recognized as a Democrat and continuously invokes his late father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and his uncle President John F. Kennedy on the marketing campaign path, he has constructed shut relationships with far-right figures in recent times. He appeared on a channel run by the Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and headlined a cease on the ReAwaken America Tour, the Christian nationalist street present put collectively by Trump’s former nationwide safety adviser Michael Flynn.

Polls present much more Republicans than Democrats have a positive opinion of Kennedy. He additionally has gained help from some far-right conservatives for his fringe views, together with his vocal mistrust of COVID-19 vaccines, which research have proven are protected and efficient in opposition to extreme illness and demise.

Kennedy’s anti-vaccine group, Youngsters’s Well being Protection, at present has a lawsuit pending in opposition to quite a lot of information organizations, amongst them The Related Press, accusing them of violating antitrust legal guidelines by taking motion to determine misinformation, together with about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took go away from the group when he introduced his run for president however is listed as one in every of its attorneys within the lawsuit.

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Related Press writers Michelle Smith and Will Weissert contributed to this report.

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