Stepping into Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s home office is like stepping into another world. The rest of the home — nestled above west Los Angeles, where Kennedy lives with his wife, actress Cheryl Hines — is tastefully decorated in muted hues and original artwork. But Kennedy’s office, attached to the exterior garage, is much more chaotic. Books line the walls and cover nearly every surface. Taxidermied animals rest on the mantel and shelves. There are various markers from his career as a conservationist and environmental lawyer: a basketball-sized pufferfish, a perched hawk, and, most prominent, a massive Sumatran tiger — a gift from the Indonesian government to Kennedy’s father, the late attorney general and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

That the younger Kennedy would launch his own run for president, following in the footsteps of both his father and his uncle, isn’t entirely surprising.

But how he’s doing it is a first for any Kennedy: he initially launched his campaign as a Democrat, trying to take down President Joe Biden, who Kennedy calls a “very close” family friend. When the path to the Democratic nomination seemed unlikely, he pivoted from the family’s longtime party and launched an independent run, seeking to siphon votes from both Biden and the Republican Party nominee.