RFK Jr., Cornel West clear first hurdle to appear on Wisconsin presidential ballot

Four independent candidates have officially filed to be on the November presidential ballot in Wisconsin, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a scion of the Democratic political family; Cornel West, a left-wing academic and activist; Shiva Ayyadurai, an entrepreneur; and Claudia De la Cruz, a Socialist activist, met the deadline for filing as independents by Tuesday.

Under Wisconsin state law, candidates not affiliated with a party need at least 2,000 signatures from voters to get on the Wisconsin ballot.

Pending a review of those signatures by the Elections Commission later this month, Kennedy, West, Ayyadurai and De la Cruz would join five other expected candidates on the November ballot.

Those include Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Per state law, Harris will have to go through the national party convention before she can be submitted for the state ballot.

Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver and Constitution Party candidate Randall Terry have already certified their candidate with WEC. Green Party candidate Jill Stein is expected to do so after that party’s convention later this month.

The Libertarian, Constitution and Green Parties all cleared a key hurdle to getting on the ballot in Wisconsin when they received more than 1 percent of the vote for a statewide office in the 2022 election.

If all candidates are approved, that would place nine presidential candidates on Wisconsin’s ballot in November.

Kennedy is running as a political outsider. He built his career as an environmental lawyer, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, grew his profile peddling debunked conspiracy theories about vaccines. Ayyadurai is also an anti-vaccine activist. West is a firebrand public intellectual with ties to the Democratic Socialists of America who began his presidential bid seeking Green Party support.

Recent polling from the Marquette Law School shows Kennedy being favored by 8 percent of registered Wisconsin voters, and West favored by 4 percent. In that poll, Kennedy drew favor equally from Republicans and from Democrats, a change from past months when he was more popular among Republican voters.

Marquette’s polling has not included Ayyadurai, De la Cruz or Terry, whose platform with the conservative Christian Constitution Party is anchored by opposition to abortion.

Marquette’s last published poll was also conducted when President Joe Biden was still running as the presumptive Democratic nominee. Marquette is scheduled to release a new poll Wednesday reflecting the updated state of play in the weeks since Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris.