Some voted for Donald Trump, others for Joe Biden. A few had never wanted anything to do with politics before they heard Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on a podcast or YouTube video.

Lined up outside a Phoenix wedding hall tucked between a freeway, a railroad track and a U-Haul rental center, the hundreds of people who turned out Wednesday to hear Kennedy speak shared little in common ideologically. What united them was a deep-seated distrust — of the media, of corporations and especially of the government — and a belief that Kennedy is the only person in politics willing to tell them the truth.

“I like that he talks to us like adults,” said Gilbert Limon, a 48-year-old pharmacist from Phoenix. “He tells you the majority of what you need to know. Whereas I feel like (other politicians) just give you bits and pieces to try to fit their agenda. I’ve had enough of that.”

Voters are not enthusiastic about a Biden-Trump rematch, and alternatives like Kennedy or the No Labels third-party movement, which would typically be longshots, see an opening. Kennedy’s appearance in a 2024 battleground state highlights how he could influence the election in ways that are tough to predict. Allies of both Trump and Biden have expressed concerns that Kennedy’s independent bid could pull votes from their candidate in next year’s expected general election rematch.

Kennedy made the stop in Phoenix as part of his laborious push to get access to the 2024 presidential ballot as an independent candidate, which he figures will require him to collect at least a million signatures across the country. Aides mingled in the crowd, filling up his petitions to qualify in Arizona.