Well, that was quick.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s short-lived attempt to become the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee fizzled even faster than it began, losing in the first round after receiving the support of just 19 delegates (2.07 percent of the vote) at the party’s convention in Washington, D.C., on Sunday.
Earlier in the day, the 70-year-old Kennedy was suddenly nominated by delegates from the convention floor, an announcement that was quickly met with boos from the crowd and heralded an embarrassing appearance for him.
Trump delivered a blunt speech to convention delegates on Friday, sharply criticizing the former president, 77, for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and his failure to pardon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and anti-surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden during his administration.
Trump’s name was also floated as the party’s standard-bearer at the convention, but the idea was quickly killed when Libertarian Party Chair Angela McArdle declared Trump ineligible because he had not filed his candidacy papers.
Trump spoke before a raucous crowd of delegates on Saturday afternoon and endured booing mixed with chants of “Support Trump,” which culminated when he urged the crowd to nominate him.
Amid boos and cheers, the former president added to the nomination request, “Only if I want to win. And maybe I don’t want to win.”
He received six delegate votes as a write-in candidate. One delegate wrote in “Stormy Daniels,” a satirical reference to Trump’s ongoing New York City hush money trial, the adult film star whose alleged affair with the former president sparked Trump’s current legal woes.
According to party convention rules, candidates who receive less than 5% of the vote are eliminated in the first round.
Kennedy has been meeting with Libertarian Party officials since last summer and hoped to rope in their support for the November election, in which Libertarian candidates will appear on the ballot in 38 states, but Kennedy has only voted in six so far.
Kennedy, a former Democrat who left the party in October to run as an independent, received 14% support in a Quinnipiac University poll of national voters conducted this week.
But the same poll showed his supporters are far more likely to abandon him between now and Election Day than any other candidate.
