Robert F. Kennedy Jr abandons US presidential campaign, endorses Trump

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr abandoned his campaign on Friday (Saturday AEST) and endorsed Republican Donald Trump, ending a presidential bid that he began as a Democrat trading on one of the most famous names in American politics.

His campaign indicated that he feared staying in the race would siphon support from former president Trump, who is locked in a tight contest with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the November 5 election.

Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr is suspending his presidential campaign.Credit: AP

Kennedy said he met with Trump and his aides several times and learnt they agreed on issues such as border security, free speech and ending wars.

“There are still many issues and approaches on which we continue to have very serious differences. But we are aligned on other key issues,” he said at a news conference.

Kennedy said he would remove his name from the ballot in 10 battleground states likely to determine the outcome of the election but would remain as a candidate in other states.

An environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist and son and nephew of two titans of Democratic politics, who were both assassinated during the turbulent 1960s, Kennedy entered the race in April 2023 as a challenger to President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.

With voters at the time turned off by both the ageing Biden and the legally embattled Trump, interest in Kennedy soared. He shifted his plans and decided to run as an independent, and a November 2023 Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Kennedy drawing the support of 20 per cent of Americans in a three-way race with Biden and Trump.

He ran a high-profile advertisement during the February 2024 Super Bowl that invoked his father, senator Robert F. Kennedy, and his uncle, president John F. Kennedy, and drew outrage from much of his high-profile family.

His sister, Kerry Kennedy, said that his decision to endorse Trump betrayed the family’s values. “It is a sad ending to a sad story,” she said on social media.

For a time, both the Biden and Trump campaigns showed signs they were worried that Kennedy could draw enough support to change the election outcome. His name is on the ballot in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota and North Carolina – half of the competitive swing states expected to determine the election’s outcome.

But as the race changed quickly in the last two months – with Trump surviving an assassination attempt and the 81-year-old Biden bowing to pressure from his own party and passing the campaign torch to Harris – voter interest in Kennedy, 70, waned. An Ipsos poll early this month showed his national support had fallen to 4 per cent, a tiny number, but one that could still be meaningful in a tight race such as the current Trump-Harris match-up.

Democrats shrugged off his announcement.

“Donald Trump isn’t earning an endorsement that’s going to help build support, he’s inheriting the baggage of a failed fringe candidate. Good riddance,” Democratic National Committee senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill said in a statement.

The Democratic Party has been ruthless in their opposition to Kennedy’s candidacy, including waging legal challenges against his ballot access, as concern grew that Kennedy could hurt the party’s chances in November.

Bear, brain worms

Kennedy said this month in a video posted online that he dumped a dead bear in New York City’s Central Park a decade ago and staged it to look like a bike had hit it. He proclaimed he had “so many skeletons in my closet” after a former family babysitter accused him of sexual assault. He denied that a picture of him posing with the barbecued carcass of a large animal belonged to a canine.

And then there was the brain worm. Kennedy had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has since fully recovered, a fact unearthed by The New York Times and confirmed by the campaign.

In exchange for endorsing Trump, Kennedy was hoping for a job in a potential Trump administration, a political action committee supporting Kennedy told Reuters on Wednesday. He also wanted Trump to allow his political movement to continue in some fashion, which could include staying on the ballot in some states.

Kennedy has painted himself as a political outsider. He told Reuters in an interview in March that if elected president he would not restrict abortion, would repeal many provisions of Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act and would seek to close down the southern border to immigrants entering the US illegally. He also offered staunch support for Israel.

In a video of a phone call posted online last month, Trump suggested to Kennedy that the independent candidate could do something to support the Trump campaign. Soon after, both candidates spoke a day apart from each other at a bitcoin conference in Nashville, trying to court votes.

Reuters

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