Environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F Kennedy Jnr has formally announced he is to run for the White House.
The declaration on Wednesday came as a poll suggested he had the support of about 14 per cent of voters who had previously backed Joe Biden for president in 2020.
Mr Biden is by far the favourite to become the Democratic Party candidate for the White House.
Self-help author Marianne Williamson is also seeking the Democratic nomination to run for president in 2024.
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Mr Biden has not formally declared that he will run again for the presidency. However, he has signalled that he will shortly announce his campaign for re-election.
Mr Kennedy is a member of one of the most famous political families in the United States. His father was Robert Kennedy, former attorney general and presidential candidate who was assassinated in 1968. His uncle was president John F Kennedy.
However, in recent years he had been one of the main vaccine sceptics in the US, a stance that has been criticised by some members of his family.
In 2019 three prominent family members said, in an article, that while they stood behind his work on the environment, “on vaccines he is wrong”.
Mr Kennedy has acknowledged that his family has close links with Mr Biden – with some members holding key positions in the administration, including his nephew Joseph Kennedy III who is the new economic envoy to Northern Ireland.
His sister Kerry Kennedy, who is president of the non-profit organisation Robert F Kennedy Human Rights, said earlier this month: “I love my brother Bobby but I do not share or endorse his opinions on many issues, including the Covid pandemic, vaccinations and the role of social media platforms in policing false information. It is also important to note that Bobby’s views are not reflected in or influence the mission or work of our organisation.”
Speaking at the launch of his campaign for the White House in Boston on Wednesday Mr Kennedy said: “I’ve come here today to announce my candidacy for Democratic nomination for president of the United States.
“My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign, and throughout my presidency, will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism on our country, to commoditise our children, our purple mountain’s majesty; to poison our children and our people with chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs; to strip-mine our assets; to hollow out the middle class and keep us in a constant state of war.”
He said that as president he would seek to end the chronic disease epidemic in the US and, if he did not achieve this to a significant degree, would not want to be re-elected to a second term.
Mr Kennedy also called for a national conversation in the US about the war in Ukraine.
In a USA Today/Suffolk University poll on Wednesday, 14 per cent of people surveyed who had voted for president Biden in 2020 said they would back Mr Kennedy.
The poll found that Mr Biden’s support among his own 2020 voters stood at 67 per cent.
