Secret Service protection offered to third presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Kennedy has little chance of winning the Electoral College, much less the presidency. But his campaign events have attracted many supporters and people interested in his message. His campaign has been urging the president to provide him with Secret Service protection for months, and has sent numerous requests after various incidents.

In October, a man was arrested after illegally entering Kennedy’s Los Angeles home twice in one day, and a month earlier, a gunman accused of impersonating a federal agent was taken into custody outside a Kennedy campaign event.

Kennedy’s uncle, President John F Kennedy, and his father, Senator Robert F Kennedy, were both assassinated.

“Thank you, President Biden, for granting me Secret Service protection,” Kennedy said in a statement. He also thanked his private security firm, Gavin de Becker and Associates, “for protecting me during the last 15 months of my presidential campaign.”

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Biden ordered Kennedy’s protection “before and after the events of last weekend.”

The Secret Service is legally required to protect major-party presidential and vice presidential candidates and their families for 120 days before a general election, but third-party candidates are handled on an as-needed basis. Kennedy, who has paid millions for private security, said the cost limited his ability to campaign.

The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged in its 2024 budget overview that recent requests for protected applicants are coming earlier than in the past.

Threats against political candidates are common, but law enforcement said there has been a spike in violent rhetoric since the weekend attack at Trump’s rally. Mayorkas said Biden and Trump are “constantly under threat.”

“We are in a very dynamic and heightened threat environment,” he said.

Kennedy met with Trump on Monday “to discuss national unity,” said Stefanie Spear, a Kennedy spokeswoman. He also hopes to meet with Democratic leaders, she said, adding that he is not giving up on the race.

With a famous name and a loyal voter base, Kennedy has the potential to do better than any third-party presidential candidate since Ross Perot in the 1990s. But he did not participate in the first presidential debate, on June 27.

The Biden and Trump campaigns, worried that he would be a party pooper, bypassed the nonpartisan debate commission and agreed to a schedule that essentially excluded Kennedy.

Kennedy, who challenged Biden last year for the Democratic nomination before running as an independent, argued that his relatively strong showing in some national polls gave him some weight. Polls during the 2016 presidential campaign consistently gave Libertarian Gary Johnson single- or double-digit support, but he ultimately received only about 3 percent of the vote nationally.

Donald Trump became the Republican nominee for president of the United States on Monday, after receiving the votes of a sufficient number of delegates at the Republican National Convention. He was not seriously injured in the shooting that occurred last weekend in Pennsylvania. An independent investigation has been conducted into the attack.

Mayorkas said Trump’s protections have been strengthened based on “the evolving nature of the threats to the former president” and his transition from presumptive nominee to the nominee.