The Robert F. Kennedy presidential campaign began on March 16, 1968, when Kennedy, a United States Senator from New York, mounted an unlikely challenge to incumbent Democratic United States President Lyndon B. Johnson. Following a near-upset in the New Hampshire primary, Johnson announced on March 31 that he would not seek re-election to a second full term. Kennedy still faced two rival candidates for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination: the leading challenger United States Senator Eugene McCarthy and Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey had entered the race after Johnson's withdrawal, but Kennedy and McCarthy remained the main challengers to the policies of the Johnson administration. During the spring of 1968, Kennedy led a leading campaign in presidential primary elections throughout the United States. Kennedy's campaign was especially active in Indiana, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, California, and Washington, D.C. After declaring victory in the California primary on June 4, 1968, Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He died on June 6, 1968 at Good Samaritan Hospital. Had Kennedy been elected president, he would have been the first brother of a former U.S. president (John F. Kennedy) to win the presidency himself, and the second Catholic president after his brother; the feat would be eventually accomplished by Joe Biden in 2020.

Background When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963; Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson succeeded him with tremendous national popularity amid a wave of mourning and sympathy. Robert F. Kennedy remained in the cabinet (as United States attorney general) for several months amid what Johnson staffers began to refer to as "the Bobby problem": despite the personal hatred between the two, Democratic voters overwhelmingly favored Kennedy as Johnson's running mate in the 1964 election. Kennedy began to plan for a nationwide campaign, and in the informal New Hampshire vice-presidential primary, Kennedy defeated Hubert H. Humphrey in a landslide. In July 1964, Johnson issued an official statement ruling out any cabinet member for the vice presidency. In search of a way out of the dilemma, Kennedy asked speechwriter Milton Gwirtzman to write a memo comparing two offices: 1) governor of Massachusetts and 2) U.S. senator from New York, and "which would be a better place from which to make a run for the presidency in future years?" The Massachusetts governorship offered one important advantage: isolation from President Johnson. However, the state was hobbled by debt and an unruly legislature. Gwirtzman informed Kennedy that "you are going to receive invitations to attend dedications and speak around the country and abroad and to undertake other activities in connection with President Kennedy"...and that "it would seem easier to do this as a U.S. senator based in Washington, D.C. than as a governor based in Boston."

In August, Kennedy made up his mind to run for the United States Senate from New York; defeating Republican incumbent Kenneth Keating who attempted to portray Kennedy as a "carpetbagger" from Massachusetts. His opponents accused Kennedy of merely using the state as a convenient launching‐pad for the presidency. In an interview with PBS, political journalist Midge Decter stated that "nobody, for one minute, expected that he was going into the Senate to stay there. It was understood that it was the next move on the way to reclaiming what was rightfully the Kennedys, namely, the White House."

Announcement Kennedy was a late entry in making a campaign announcement for the primary race in the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1968. His political advisors had been pressuring him to make a decision, fearing Kennedy was running out of time to announce his candidacy. Although Kennedy and his advisors knew it would not be easy to beat the incumbent president, Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy had not ruled out entering the race. His younger brother Ted Kennedy was the leading voice against a bid for the presidency. He felt that his brother ought to wait until 1972, after Johnson’s tenure was finished. If RFK ran in 1968 and lost in the primaries to a sitting president, Ted felt that it would destroy his brother's chances later. U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota had announced his intention to run against Johnson for the Democratic nomination on November 30, 1967. Following McCarthy's announcement, Kennedy remarked to U.S. Senator George McGovern of South Dakota that he was, "worried about [McGovern] and other people making early commitments to [McCarthy]." Excerpt from The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and the 82 Days that Inspired America (New York, Henry Holt, 2008) by Thurston Clark. At a breakfast with reporters at the National Press Club on January 30, 1968, Kennedy once again indicated that he had no plans to run, but a few weeks later he had publicly changed his mind about entering the race.Thomas, p. 356. Despite Kennedy's public claims, Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley had informed President Johnson in a phone conversation on January 27, 1968 of his knowledge of Kennedy's intention to run. According to Daley, Kennedy met with him and sought his support, which he declined.Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine:

In early February 1968, after the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, Kennedy received an anguished letter from writer Pete Hamill, noting that poor people in the Watts area of Los Angeles had hung pictures of Kennedy's brother, President John F. Kennedy, in their homes. Hamill's letter reminded Robert Kennedy that he had an "obligation of staying true to whatever it was that put those pictures on those walls."Thomas, p. 357. There were other factors that influenced Kennedy's decision to enter the presidential primary race. On February 29, 1968, the Kerner Commission issued a report on the racial unrest that had affected American cities during the previous summer. The Kerner Commission blamed "white racism" for the violence, but its findings were largely dismissed by the Johnson administration. Concerned about President Johnson's policies and actions, Kennedy asked his advisor, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.: "How can we possibly survive five more years of Lyndon Johnson?" Disagreement amongst Kennedy's friends, political advisors, and family members further complicated his decision to launch a primary challenge against the incumbent Johnson. Kennedy's wife Ethel supported the idea, but his brother Ted had been opposed to the candidacy. Ted did lend his support once Kennedy entered the race.Thomas, pp. 357–358.

By late February or early March 1968, Kennedy had finally made the decision to enter the race for president. On March 10, Kennedy traveled to Delano, California, to meet with civil rights activist César Chávez, at the end of a 25-day hunger strike. En route to California, Kennedy told his aide, Peter Edelman, that he had decided to run and had to "figure out how to get McCarthy out of it." The weekend before the New Hampshire primary, Kennedy told several aides that he would run if he could persuade McCarthy to withdraw from the presidential race. Kennedy agreed to McCarthy's request to delay an announcement of his intentions until after the New Hampshire primary. On March 12, when Johnson won an astonishingly narrow victory in the New Hampshire primary against McCarthy, who polled 42 percent of the vote, Kennedy knew it would be unlikely that the Minnesota senator would agree to withdraw. He moved forward with his plans to announce his candidacy.Thomas, p. 359.

On March 16, Kennedy declared, "I am today announcing my candidacy for the presidency of the United States. I do not run for the presidency merely to oppose any man, but to propose new policies. I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and because I have such strong feelings about what must be done, and I feel that I'm obliged to do all I can."Kennedy, Robert F., "Robert F. Kennedy's Announcement of his candidacy for president" (speech, Washington, DC, 1968-03-16). Retrieved 2012-05-17. Kennedy made this announcement from the same spot in the Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building where John F. Kennedy had announced his presidential candidacy in January 1960.Thomas, p. 360.On September 14, 2009, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution to rename the Senate Caucus Room in the Russell Senate Office Building (RSOB) to the Kennedy Senate Caucus Room in honor of the three Kennedy brothers who served in the Senate chamber. John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy announced their presidential campaigns in the room and their younger brother, the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who died of cancer in August 2009, chaired hearings in the room on a health-care bill that bore his name. McCarthy supporters angrily denounced Kennedy as an opportunist.Schlesinger, p. 860. With Kennedy joining the race, liberal Democrats thought that votes among supporters of the anti-war movement would now be split between McCarthy and Kennedy.

On March 17, Kennedy made his first campaign appearances by marching in the St. Patrick's Day Parades in Boston and New York City.Tye, p. 405. The following day, he delivered his first campaign speech at Kansas State University, where he had previously agreed to give a lecture honoring former Kansas governor and Republican Alfred Landon. At Kansas State, Kennedy drew a "record-setting crowd of 14,500 students" for his Landon Lecture. In his speech, Kennedy apologized for early mistakes and attacked President Johnson's Vietnam policy saying, "I was involved in many of the early decisions on Vietnam, decisions which helped set us on our present path." He further acknowledged that "past error is not excuse for its own perpetration." Later that day at the University of Kansas, Kennedy spoke to an audience of 19,000—one of the largest in the university's history. During that speech he said, "I don't think that we have to shoot each other, to beat each other, to curse each other and criticize each other, I think that we can do better in this country. And that is why I run for President of the United States."Kennedy, Robert F., "Remarks at the University of Kansas" (speech, Lawrence, KS, 1968-03-18), John F. Kennedy Library. Retrieved May 18, 2012. From Kansas, Kennedy went on to campaign in the Democratic primaries in Indiana, Washington, D.C., Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, and California.

On March 31, President Johnson stunned the nation by dropping out of the presidential race. He withdrew from the election during a televised speech, where he also announced a partial halt to the bombing of Vietnam and proposed peace negotiations with the North Vietnamese.Thomas, p. 365. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, long a champion of labor unions and civil rights, entered the race on April 27.Schlesinger, p. 923. Although he was a write-in candidate in some of the contests, Humphrey had announced his candidacy too late to be a formal candidate in most of the primaries. Despite late entry into the primary race, Humphrey had the support of the president and many Democratic insiders, which gave him a better chance at gaining convention delegates in the non-primary states.Solberg, pp. 327–328. In contrast, Kennedy, like his brother before him, had planned to win the nomination through popular support in the primaries. Because Democratic party leaders would influence delegate selection and convention votes, Kennedy's strategy was to influence the decision-makers with crucial wins in the primary elections. This strategy had worked for John F. Kennedy in 1960, when he defeated Humphrey in the Wisconsin and West Virginia primaries.

Policy positions