Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pledged to challenge President Joe Biden in his 2024 reelection bid, joining Marianne Williamson as one of the few Democrats to do so.
The nephew of former President John F. Kennedy and son of his equally iconic brother, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., filed a statement of candidacy Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission, according to the Associated Press.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made no formal statement on the matter, but he has been vehemently critical of the Biden administration, especially in its push for the coronavirus vaccine mandate. He also spoke about a presidential run in early March of this year.
“I’m thinking about it, and I’ve passed the biggest hurdle, which is my wife has green lighted it,” Kennedy said during a visit to St. Anselm College.
“We can’t advance ourselves as a people by leaving our poorer brothers and sisters behind. The things that define our nation are these communities, and they are based on the Constitution,” he added.
When mulling his presidential run, Kennedy issued a sharp rebuke to the pharmaceutical industry and the government’s failure to regulate big business.
“We pay more for medicine and more for pharmaceuticals. We consume three times more pharmaceutical drugs than other Western nations, and we have the worst health outcomes,” Kennedy said.
Should Kennedy make a formal announcement, a fair amount of his platforms will likely mirror that of Marianne Williamson, who also criticized pharmaceutical companies, as well as the Biden administration’s relationship with big business.
“We are upset about this country, we’re worried about this country,” Williamson told a crowd of 600 at her campaign kickoff in March. “It is our job to create a vision of justice and love that is so powerful that it will override the forces of hatred and injustice and fear.”
According to Newsweek, a recent poll showed Marianne Williamson making slight gains on Joe Biden as Democrats wrestle over whether or not to support him in 2024. The president has yet to formally announce his run.
“A new poll by Echelon Insights shows Williamson backed by a double-digit percentage of likely Democratic primary voters,” Newsweek noted. “The survey, which was conducted from March 27 to 29, showed the long-shot contender with 10 percent of likely Democratic voters saying that they’d ‘probably” or ‘definitely’ back her.”
