Pro-Kennedy Super PAC says it raised $10 million
A political action committee supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign has raised a total of $10.25 million, one of its leaders said Monday. Republicans.
The precise level of fundraising by the super PAC, American Values 2024, will not be known until later this month, when political action committees submit reports to the Federal Election Commission midway through the year. But Tony Lyons, Mr Kennedy’s publisher and co-chair of the super PAC, said the $10.25 million included two “very large” donations that exceeded $1 million each, and that the contributions came from a “straight from the middle” mix of Republicans and Democrats.
Mr. Kennedy, a 69-year-old environmental lawyer and prominent skeptic of vaccines and prescription drugs, often cites distorted statistics and baseless theories. He has gained a foothold in the race, even as he has railed against the Democratic Party, accused public health authorities of corruption, and increasingly embraced conservative figures and causes.
Mr. Kennedy will not come close to convening the kind of financial support that will flow to Mr. Biden, who, as an incumbent, holds power from the Democratic National Committee and has a robust donor infrastructure behind him.
Kennedy’s support among Democrats has risen to 20 percent in polls, although a poll conducted in June by the Saint Anselm College Survey Center put his Democratic support in New Hampshire at 9 percent.
He also appealed to potential voters outside the party: A Survey from Quinnipiac University found in June that 40 percent of Republicans viewed him favorably, compared to 31 percent of independents and 25 percent of Democrats.
Mr Biden’s campaign has yet to release fundraising figures.
The super PAC American Values 2024 was founded last year as the People’s Pharma Movement and was initially funded with $500,000 in contributions from Mark Gorton, a New York City investor, data shows. Mr. Gorton, who supports Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy, has said he knows Mr. Kennedy from the “health freedom” movement, which is broadly opposed to vaccinations and the regulation of health practices.
The committee’s name was changed last spring after Mr. Kennedy ran for the Democratic nomination in April. A majority of the $10.25 million has since come in, Mr Lyons said. As recently as the first week of June, total PAC loot totaled $5.7 million, commission officials said, indicating nearly $5 million was still coming in in the weeks before the June 30 reporting deadline.
The variety of political affiliations among the donors, Mr. Lyons said, showed that “there are really people across the political spectrum who think he’s going to fight government corruption and corporate takeovers of government agencies.”
In recent speeches and appearances, Mr. Kennedy on his family’s storied political history and portrayed his race as an attempt to “close the gap” in American politics, which he says is caught up in corporate power.
The PAC is separate from its campaign, which sent out requests last week to meet a $5 million goal to close out the first full quarter of fundraising. On Friday, the campaign boasted $1 million in loot in a 24-hour period.
Dennis Kucinich, the former Ohio presidential candidate and former congressman who serves as Mr. Kennedy’s campaign manager, said the campaign is expected to make a fundraising announcement this week. Official figures will be submitted to the FEC this month.
A second group supporting Mr. Kennedy, Common Sense PAC, was founded in Los Angeles in April by Sofia Karstens, an actress who has been active in the health freedom movement. Common Sense organized a fundraiser for Mr. Kennedy in San Francisco last month along with two technology investors, David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya. That event raised nearly $1 million, Ms. Karstens said.
Ms. Karstens did not have the PAC’s latest total fundraiser readily available Monday.