LINCOLN — Third-party presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans a stop this week in the state where his father campaigned by train in 1968, weeks before winning Nebraska’s Democratic primary.

But Junior isn’t visiting Nebraska to run as a Democrat like dad, and some analysts say his effort to get onto the 2024 general election ballot could risk Democratic President Joe Biden’s re-election bid.

Swing state polling is unclear about who would be hurt more by Kennedy reaching the ballot. National political observers say Biden has more to lose than former President Donald Trump, should he become the Republican nominee.

Kennedy has scheduled a rally at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Royal Grove in Lincoln, 340 W. Cornhusker Hwy. Lincoln was one of the few Nebraska cities his father’s whistle-stop tour missed in 1968.

That tour started in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and ended in Omaha. It stopped in Fremont, Schuyler, Columbus, Grand Island, Kearney, Lexington, North Platte, Ogallala, Sidney and Kimball. He separately visited Chadron.

Many members of Kennedy’s own family publicly oppose his bid. Several longtime supporters have criticized his vocal opposition to some vaccines and his embrace of conspiracy theories. Some on the right view him as a way to help a Republican presidential candidate win.

Junior’s Nebraska visit has two purposes: First, he must gather at least 2,500 valid signatures from registered voters to get on Nebraska’s 2024 general election presidential ballot.

Kennedy said in a press release that he hopes to use volunteers instead of paid circulators to gather signatures in all 50 states. A Kennedy-supporting Super PAC has said it will spend $10 million to get him on the ballot in harder-to-reach states.

Second, Nebraska awards two electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote for president statewide and one vote apiece to the winners in each of the state’s three congressional districts.

In 2020, that one vote from the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District to Biden, with the other four going to then-President Donald Trump.

The same split happened in 2008, when U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, became the first Democrat to win a Nebraska electoral vote since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Nebraska and Maine are the only states that split their votes, and conservative lawmakers have proposed switching back to the winner-take-all approach.

This story was originally published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. It is part of the national nonprofit States Newsroom. Find more at nebraskaexaminer.com.