RFK Jr.’s campaign almost broke, he gave Shanahan back a million dollars

According to the filing, Kennedy’s campaign brought in just over $5.6 million last month and spent more than $7.2 million. Much of the money went to trying to get Kennedy’s name on ballots across the country, reflecting his recent legal challenges in New York and difficulties in gathering enough signatures to appear on ballots in key states of change.

Kennedy’s campaign also owes about $3.5 million to private security director Gavin de Becker.

Any third-party presidential candidate, even a Kennedy, faces a difficult task. Major party candidates like Trump and Harris have national, state and local party organizations at their disposal. It also doesn’t take much effort to qualify to vote in every state and the District of Columbia.

Instead, candidates like Kennedy must build their organization from scratch. And if that wasn’t expensive enough, they also have to fund the expensive effort to qualify to vote in every state. Kennedy’s Arizona effort relied on an outside super PAC to try to reach the signature requirement for the key swing state, a move that raises legal questions, the New York Times reported.

During July, the Kennedy campaign spent more than $41,000 on expenses listed as “Ballot Access Consulting.” And that doesn’t include the more than $1.5 million he paid to Accelevate 2020 LLC, which specializes in “Ballot Access Services/Petition and Campaign Consulting,” according to its website.

Before the campaign numbers were released, Shanahan said the campaign was strongly considering closing the store and endorsing former President Donald Trump.

Kennedy appears to want a job in the White House, regardless of who is in charge — he has reportedly spoken to Trump about health care oversight and unsuccessfully sought a meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris. The Kennedy campaign did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.

Trump said he would consider adding Kennedy, an environmental lawyer now best known for his anti-vaccine advocacy, to his team. Kennedy was slated to join the administration after the former president’s 2016 upset, but others in Trump’s orbit balked at the move.

“You ask me a very unusual question, I have not been asked the question yet.” Trump told CNN when asked if he would put Kennedy in his administration. “I like him a lot, I respect him a lot, I probably would have if something like that happened.”

From a legal point of view, both parties must take care to make a counterpart arrangement. It is against the law to “directly or indirectly” promise a future job or position “for the purpose of obtaining support in his application”.

A member of the Democratic Party’s most famous family, Kennedy launched a brief primary challenge to President Joe Biden before abruptly shifting his aspirations to a third-party run. He has since argued that the modern Democratic Party is far different from the one his father, former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, tried to lead before he was shot before the 1968 presidential election. Some of Kennedy’s siblings they harshly criticized his challenge against Biden and rejected his presidential campaign.