Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday challenged President Joe Biden to a "No Spoiler Pledge" that would cause one of the two candidates to drop out of this November's election.

As part of the proposed pledge, the campaigns would co-fund a 50-state poll with 30,000 or more likely voters in October to test head-to-head, two-man races pitting Biden or Kennedy against former President Donald Trump.

What You Need To Know

  • Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. challenged President Joe Biden to a 'No Spoiler Pledge'

  • As part of the pledge, the campaigns would co-fund a 50-state poll with 30,000 or more likely voters in October

  • The poll would test head-to-head races pitting Biden or Kennedy against former President Donald Trump

  • Whichever candidate performed worse against Trump wouuld agree to drop out of the race, per the proposed pledge

"If I remain in the race and the election were held today, President Trump would win and President Biden would lose,” Kennedy claimed as part of a “special announcement” over a livestream on the Kennedy24 YouTube channel Wednesday. "If I got out of the race, Trump would win by much more. So the people who believe I'm spoiling for President Biden need to look at data."

Before issuing his challenge, Kennedy campaign director Amaryllis Fox Kennedy presented the results of a John Zogby Strategies 50-state survey of likely voters conducted with more than 26,000 people in mid April that found Biden would lose the election in a head-to-head race with Trump and Kennedy would win. A Biden-Trump match would yield 244 electoral votes for Biden and 294 for Trump, according to the survey. 

If Biden dropped out, the survey found Kennedy would win with 270 electoral college votes to Trump's 268; if Trump dropped out, Kennedy would win 367 to Biden's 171, per the results of the RFK campaign-presented survey.

Kennedy took issue with the Democratic National Committee's characterization of him as a spoiler, saying the term was more applicable to Biden. The Kennedy campaign defines a spoiler as someone who can't win but prevents someone else from winning by staying in the race.

In a three-way presidential race between Kennedy, Biden and Trump, 13% choose Kennedy, 39% are for Trump and 38% are for Biden, according to a Quinnipiac poll taken March 21-25.

The no-spoiler challenge comes as the Kennedy campaign is working to gain ballot access in all 50 states. On Wednesday, Kennedy announced he had secured enough signatures to get on the ballot in New York State.

On Monday, the Kennedy campaign announced it had won ballot access in California. The American Independent Party of California nominated Kennedy and his vice presidential running mate Nicole Shanahan over the weekend and have filed paperwork with the Secretary of State.

“What I’m trying to do during this election is to get people to step away from their narrow self interest, to transcend their lower impulses of anger and bigotry and fear and see themselves as part of a big adventure, see themselves as heroes that are willing to take a risk,” Kennedy said in a video statement announcing his ballot access win in California.

The Kennedy24 campaign has been working to gain ballot access in all 50 states since January, when it launched the We the People party to get on the California ballot before the Super Tuesday primary election March 5. The Kennedy-Shanahan ticket has since collected enough signatures to get on the ballot in Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire and North Carolina.

Utah has already granted his We the People party ballot access. Last month, the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket won ballot access in Michigan as the official nominee of the Natural Law Party.

Kennedy, 70, filed his candidacy for the Democratic party presidential nomination in April 2023 but switched to run as an independent in October last year saying the two-party political system was “corrupt” and “rigged.”