RFK Jr. counters ‘undemocratic’ party; Trump endorsement puts new spin on battleground showdowns

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., suspending his presidential campaign and throwing his support behind the Republican nominee, struck at the heart of Vice President Kamala Harris’ claim that she would protect democracy and freedom.

He also sent Democrats scurrying to dismiss the potential impact of his exit on battleground contests, where a shift of just 1 or 2 percentage points could decide who moves into the White House next year.

In announcing his decision Friday, Mr. Kennedy said the Democratic Party is “the party of war, censorship, corruption, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Ag and Big Money.”

He said Democrats’ efforts to keep him off the ballot and hamstring his campaign with lawsuits was “undemocratic” — as was the move by party insiders to make ​Ms. Harris the presidential nominee without a single primary vote.

Mr. Kennedy insisted his endorsement of former President Donald Trump wasn’t about revenge.

“I don’t act out of anger or revenge or resentment. It’s a bad motivation. It’s like swallowing poison and hoping someone else will die, and so I don’t do it,” Mr. Kennedy said on “Fox News Sunday.”

He threw cold water on speculation that he traded his endorsement for a Cabinet post.

“There’s been no commitments,” Mr. Kennedy said. “But, you know, I met with President Trump, with his family, with his closest advisers, and we just made a general commitment that we are going to work together.”

Mr. Trump has embraced Mr. Kennedy’s support and brought him on the campaign stage Friday in Arizona. He said he and Mr. Kennedy were sometimes at odds but the independent candidate ran an “extraordinary campaign.” 

Mr. Trump promised that, if elected, he would release all remaining government files from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Mr. Kennedy’s uncle.

The big question is where Mr. Kennedy’s voters will go.

The Democratic National Committee is not worried, said senior spokeswoman Hannah Muldavin.

“This changes nothing about the actual election,” she said on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday.”

“We know that … independent voters favor Kamala Harris over Donald Trump. And so this changes nothing about the race,” she said. “It affirms what we always knew from the starting point: that RFK Jr. was a spoiler for Donald Trump, and we’re ready to win this as Democrats and go talk to those voters.”

Democrats said they had neutralized Mr. Kennedy’s threat to Ms. Harris with a coordinated effort to define him.

“As voters have learned about RFK Jr.’s unsavory and reckless past, ties to MAGA donors, and MAGA-lite positions on abortion bans and January 6th pardons, his support has dwindled to make him a near-negligible factor,” the DNC said in a strategy memo.

Mr. Kennedy’s polling numbers have dropped significantly from his double-digit share of the vote when he entered the race as a Democratic challenger to President Biden, but his support is significant enough to tip the race in the battleground states.

Mr. Biden won Pennsylvania in 2020 by about 1.2% of the vote, and Mr. Trump won it in 2016 by less than 1% of the vote. This year, polls show Mr. Kennedy with 3% or 4% of the vote and Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump virtually tied.

Mr. Biden won Arizona in 2020 by less than 1 percentage point. In recent polls, Mr. Kennedy is taking as much as 7% of the vote while Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris are running neck-and-neck.

Mr. Trump’s campaign argued in a strategy memo that the turn of events was “good news” for the former president because polling data showed that most of Mr. Kennedy’s voters tended to break for Mr. Trump.

Mr. Kennedy promised to remove his name from the ballot in swing states and urged his supporters in battleground states to support Mr. Trump. He withdrew from contention in Arizona and Pennsylvania, where he was locked in a legal battle with Democrats trying to block him from the ballot.

“I don’t think it is going to have a big impact, but a small impact could mean something here in Arizona,” Barrett Marson, an Arizona-based Republican Party strategist, told The Washington Times.

He said Mr. Kennedy was the choice of many voters who were not thrilled with Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump, though Ms. Harris’ candidacy reenergized some wayward Democrats.

“I also think some of the RFK voters were to the right. They liked the anti-vaccine stuff,” said Mr. Marson. “I don’t think it will have a big impact generally speaking, but in a state [like Arizona] that was only decided by 10,500 votes, a 1-point swing makes a difference.”

Green Party nominee Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West have echoed Mr. Kennedy’s charge that Democrats have become the “Undemocratic Party” by working to block their access to the ballot.

Mr. Kennedy said his former party colluded with Democratic-friendly news outlets to keep him off TV. Since entering the race five weeks ago, Ms. Harris has been given a pass to avoid news interviews.

“Instead of showing us her substance and character, the DNC and its media organs engineered a surge of popularity for Vice President Harris based upon, well, nothing,” Mr. Kennedy said Friday. “No policies, no interviews, no debates — only smoke and mirrors and balloons in a highly produced Chicago circus.”

Left-leaning media outlets blasted Mr. Kennedy for endorsing Mr. Trump. The Washington Post and Politico ran editorials, opinion pieces and listicles that scolded him for betraying his family’s legacy.

Mr. Kennedy’s late exit could complicate his promise to remove his name from the ballot in all the battleground states, though he is urging his supporters in those states to vote for Mr. Trump.

Mr. Kennedy will be on the ballot in Michigan, where Mr. Trump is set to make a campaign stop this week.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said Mr. Kennedy is the Natural Law Party nominee and, under state law, “minor party candidates cannot withdraw.”

Mr. Kennedy is also on the ballot in North Carolina.

This week, Ms. Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will tour Georgia, another swing state where polls show the race deadlocked.

Polls in Georgia, where Mr. Biden won in 2020 by less than 1 percentage point, show Mr. Trump leading by just a few points and Mr. Kennedy with 2% to 5% of the vote.