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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces independent run for president, ending Democratic primary challenge to Biden | CNN Politics (www.cnn.com)

submitted 1 year ago by DevCat@lemmy.world to c/usa@lemmy.ml

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CNN — Environmental lawyer and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Monday his independent candidacy for president, officially ending his effort to defeat President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary in favor of a long-shot general election bid.

“I’m here to declare myself an independent candidate for president of the United States,” Kennedy said in remarks in Philadelphia.

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[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

you aren't going to vote to help close the gap

I do vote, I just tend to vote for third parties. The R candidate wins with ~60% of the vote almost every election, so even if every third party voter supported the second-place candidate, the R candidate would still win. So whether I vote D or a third party is immaterial, the results are the same.

Ranked choice voting

Sure, though I personally prefer STAR or Approval Voting (I push for Approval, but prefer STAR). If it comes up as a ballot measure, I'll vote for it. If a candidate runs on that as a platform, I'll vote for them. But AFAIK, nobody in my state pushes for it in their campaign, and they submit a bill every few years that doesn't go anywhere because there's not a lot of energy behind it. We had a pilot program with RCV (which I supported), but again, it didn't go anywhere.

So yes, I absolutely want an alternative to FPTP.

If I really wanted to get involved more, I'd run for office to raise awareness, and I probably wouldn't run on the D ticket (I'm not a Democrat, more of a left-leaning Libertarian, and that honestly probably has a better chance in my area). But I have young kids and a full-time job, so that's just not feasible at this point. But I do want to run against my state rep because that seat has been unopposed for as long as I've lived here (~10 years now). I don't expect much to happen though, since fed seats usually go to the R candidate with >70% of the vote, and anywhere I'd actually want to live is similar (the only blue areas are downtown or in resort-y areas).

consider the power that you could have in helping to close that gap

Yeah, I plan to get more involved once my kids get more independent.

But the fact of the matter is, my individual ballot does not matter so I vote my conscience instead of for the lesser of two evils. I hope that small effort shows someone in my State Legislature that interest in third parties is enough to warrant looking into voting reform.