The Reform Party requalified for party status in Florida this week, regaining state ballot access and ensuring that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be on the Florida ballot later this year.
“The Reform Party of the United States has regained ballot access in Florida,” the party said in a press release on Friday. “As a qualified national party, with an advisory opinion from the Federal Elections Commission, the Reform Party does not have to petition for presidential ballot access in the state.”
“With the party recognized by the Florida Board of Elections, it can now put the Reform Party Presidential nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the ballot. His running mate is Nicole Shanahan,” it added.
The party officially nominated Kennedy at its national convention last month. In the week leading up to the convention, the party had also announced that it reorganized its Florida affiliate under new leadership and submitted the paperwork needed to regain its ballot access, which it initially lost last year.
In addition to giving the Kennedy campaign Florida ballot access, the Reform Party added that its status as a qualified national party permits it to raise $43,100 from large donors, in contrast to the $6,600 limit for Kennedy’s campaign committee. The ability to stack contributions, in turn, allows a single donor to contribute up to $49,700 to Kennedy’s campaign, providing the campaign with a substantial fundraising advantage.
The party also briefly mentioned on social media that it is interested in Mississippi, Delaware, Washington, and Vermont as potential targets for ballot access ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Wow.
About 2 decades ago the Reform Party in Florida was in the midst of buying an office building down the street from me in St. Pete and was renting the whole thing as its phone center. They had just finished a campaign and I stopped in for a courtesy call. The guy there gave me the grand tour–it was truly impressive–then as we chummed it up and my wife worked her charm he really opened up and revealed a lot of the phone business was from unknown sponsors the Reform Party people there were told to stay away from. He disobeyed and discovered a whole room was dedicated to calling people telling them NOT to vote Reform, Libertarian, or Green. He said he thought he was the victim of some joke then later the same room was calling people in a certain neighborhood only being told ONLY to vote Green. There was also a group of callers that only called Mexico.
As we talked he told me many weird things were happening to, he felt, either manipulate or destroy destroy the party and the LP Florida should watch out given its recent electoral successes (indeed many strange things came to pass 2008-14 from which it has yet to recover). He said they were especially interested in LP Pinellas because it had gotten so many libertarians in office and had created a coalition with the Greens and others on electoral reform.
He said notable Reform people were dying under mysterious circumstances (“look for sudden cancers and pancreas trouble,” he said) and he feared being killed. He himself died shortly thereafter, and the whole operation fell apart. As he himself said there was a lot of zany misinformation and lies being circulated to unnerve people but one wonders. He also told me a story about how a communist group backed by China was trying to control the reforms and had ‘swamped’ meetings as ‘the real reformists’ who would ‘get the party going.’ I’ve had a few experiences and like NYC, Florida politics can get a little rough. Anyway, my wife and I would drive by afterwards with this empty office building discussing that strange afternoon. One time I told my counterpart in the local Greens about it and HE opened up about hanky-panky there. Another Green took me aside and predicted the Greens would go in circles for at least two decades, ‘”we’re being taken over by overt communists who then just sit there.” takeovers weren’t news, but the ‘Sitzkrieg’ strategy to enter and just plausibly immobolize small parties was.
At the time a generous donor was interested in the building to start a Libertarian library and archive under LIO auspices. So the Reform Party drafted some documents for an option if they did not buy the building. Nothing came of it, the donor decided to fund Libertarian Poll Group project instead, but I told my eye surgeon about the building–the guy has pioneered many surgery techniques and has many surgeons at work and is internationally admired–as he was looking for space. One thing led to another and my eye surgeon was now down the street.
Then my insurance changed and he was not on my plan. He did a great job renovating the building though.
My hope for RFK JR is any bad actors moved on and lo and behold, the Reform Party structure and platform can yet strike a blow. I devoutly hope he does not get embroiled in some pseudo-scandal in Reform Florida set up by these mo-mo’s. RFK JR should work for ballot-watchers of cross-partisan citizens at major poll stations.