Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will remain on the ballot in New Jersey as an independent candidate for president after a judge found that the state’s Sore Loser Law did not apply.
Administrative Law Judge Ernest Bongiovanni found that Kennedy never filed a nominating petition for the Democratic primary, so he isn’t getting a second bite at the apple.
He said Salmon’s “interpretation of the sore loser law is overbroad and would require clear evidence to determine that the speeches, raising of campaign funds, and publishing of press releases—all activities conducted nationwide and not for the specific benefit of New Jersey democratic primary election votes—established respondents as primary elections candidates in New Jersey.”
Scott Salmon, an election lawyer who filed the challenge to Kennedy’s nominating petition, maintained that Kennedy’s challenge to Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination made him ineligible to get a second chance by running as an independent.
“The law says that if you unsuccessfully seek the nomination in the primary, you cannot be an independent candidate in the general election,” said Salmon. “It really is that simple.”
In a closing argument sent to Bongiovanni, Salmon said that Kennedy’s “conduct strikes as the heart of New Jersey’s Sore Loser Law.”
“His attempts to gaslight us as to what he was doing for those ten months when he was parading around both New Jersey and the country asking for support only strengthens the need for the Sore Loser Law’s enforcement,” stated Salmon.
Kennedy’s attorney, Donald Burke, argued that Kennedy never actually filed to run in the New Jersey presidential primary – or any other state – and that the Sore Loser Law doesn’t apply.
Bongiovanni’s decision appears to repudiate a 2023 call by Superior Court Judge Benjamin Morgan in Salem County. Morgan removed Penns Grove Mayor LaDaena Thomas, an independent, from the general election ballot after an individual not affiliated with Thomas’ campaign used Facebook to urge voters to write-in Thomas in the Democratic primary. While the first-term mayor didn’t seek votes, she alluded to it on Facebook and didn’t publicly renounce the grassroots effort; that was enough for Morgan to kick her off the ballot.
Salmon told the judge that keeping Kennedy on the ballot was “potentially confusing future candidates who cannot possibly determine then if their conduct violates the law, but it would completely eviscerate the law.”
“Why have election laws if they are not enforced? He asked
But Bongiovanni said the Penns Grove case, or one in Holmdel, where a write-in candidate was not permitted to run as an independent, don’t count.
“I find neither case to contain any persuasive value whatsoever,” he wrote.
Bongiovanni found that Kennedy made “preliminary plans to run nationally as a Democrat.”
“He raised money from New Jersey donors during that time. I note that even if Kennedy raised money while initially holding himself out as a Democrat candidate, it is well known that Presidential campaigners do not participate in every primary where states hold primaries,” the judge found. They often bypass particular states. Thus, the fact that Kennedy’s camp operated as Democrats for a few months in 2023, that is no proof that even intended to, much less actually participated in New Jersey’s primaries, nor as New Jersey write-in candidates. More significantly, respondents never filed nominating petitions to be primary candidates for the office of President and Vice President for the Democratic Primary election.”