PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was in Philadelphia on Monday to announce he had dropped out of the Democratic presidential primary and will now run as an independent candidate. He chose the National Constitution Center as a backdrop.
Several hundred enthusiastic supporters, from all over the East Coast, cheered Kennedy’s announcement on Independence Mall, just a block away from where America’s founding documents were adopted.
Kennedy, a longtime environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist, said there is a “rising tide of discontent” in the country and he chose Philadelphia because he was issuing a “new Declaration of Independence” — from corporations, the media and the two major political parties.
“It’s more than being independent of two existing parties. It’s also independence from tribal thinking,” he said.
He said his decision to leave the Democratic Party was not made lightly.
“It’s very painful for me to leave the party of my uncles, my father, my grandfather.”
Kennedy, though, blamed the two-party system for divisions in the U.S. that have made it difficult, if not impossible, to solve problems.
Kennedy had been running a long-shot Democratic primary bid. And he has spent weeks accusing the DNC of “rigging” the party’s primary against him and threatening that he might need to consider alternatives.
He has better favorability ratings among Republicans. It’s unclear if GOP support would translate to a general election scenario with Donald Trump as the Republican candidate.
His supporters at times chanted “RFK, all the way!” and some campaign signs teased a potential new slogan: “Declare your independence.”
Kennedy told the crowd he would be not only an independent candidate but an independent president.
“It’s going to be very hard for people to tell whether my administration is right or left,” he said.
Supporters attending the announcement said they are looking for an alternative to a Biden-Trump rematch. Several said they don’t identify as Democratic or Republican and view Kennedy as a truth teller and a breath of fresh air.
“I think we’re at a turning point right now and maybe this is the turning point that will bring us to something more positive,” said Diana Barden, who came from Maine.
“He tells it how it is,” said Julia Hill, a 23-year-old student from New Jersey. “He doesn’t sound like a politician.”
Other supporters, such as Brent Snyder, a disabled veteran from south Philadelphia, said they had voted for Trump in the past but were looking for a change.
“The last couple years I’ve been noticing the Republican Party’s been going a way I didn’t like,” Snyder said. “Not that I agree with everything that’s happening to Trump, but I think right now he has more baggage than his country needs. The division right now is just terrible. We need someone to bring both sides together to make us work.”
Kennedy’s own family is not as hopeful. Four of his own siblings issued a statement denouncing his candidacy as dangerous, writing “Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment.”
Democrats fear he will take votes from Biden and give Trump the victory. Kennedy says Republicans fear he’ll take votes from Trump.
“The truth is, they’re both right. My intention is to spoil it for both of them,” he said.
Kennedy said he would keep an open mind on the issues, while at the same time taking definitive positions on a number of them — issues he called common ground between left and right but using phrases that echoed Democratic president Joe Biden.
“We can all agree that housing should be affordable and corporations should pay their fair share,” he said.
Before Kennedy’s announcement, the Republican National Committee published a fact sheet titled “Radical DEMOCRAT RFK Jr.,” which listed times he supported liberal politicians or ideas and times he supported conspiracy theories about COVID-19 or “stolen-election claims” related to the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections that Democrats lost to President George W. Bush.
Kennedy has built close relationships with far-right figures in recent years. He appeared on a channel run by the Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and headlined a stop on the ReAwaken America Tour, the Christian nationalist roadshow put together by Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
He also has gained support from some far-right conservatives for his fringe views, including his vocal distrust of COVID-19 vaccines, which studies have shown are safe and effective against severe disease and death.
“There have been independent candidates in this country before but this time is going to be different because this time the independent is going to win,” Kennedy said.
The last president to be elected without a party affiliation was George Washington.
Monday's announcement comes less than a week after the progressive activist Cornel West abandoned his Green Party bid in favor of an independent White House run. Meanwhile, the centrist group No Labels is actively securing ballot access for a yet-to-be-named candidate.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.