Democrats spent most of this year battling to keep Robert F. Kennedy Jr. off the ballot in swing states but are now making sure his name stays on ballots in Wisconsin, Michigan and possibly North Carolina after he suspended his campaign and aligned himself with former President Donald Trump.
Critics say the move appears to be a political attempt to siphon swing-state votes away from Mr. Trump.
Democrats didn’t balk when Vice President Kamala Harris suddenly replaced President Biden on the ballot in August. They spent months trying to prevent third-party candidates from securing their names on state ballots when polls suggested Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy would hurt Mr. Biden.
Those efforts ended when Mr. Biden dropped out of the race. Mr. Kennedy’s remaining supporters appeared more likely to take votes away from Mr. Trump.
“Democrats spent millions on lawsuits to keep us off the ballots,” Mr. Kennedy’s former running mate, Nicole Shanahan, told Fox News. “Now that we’ve suspended our campaign, they’re scrambling to keep us on the ballot.”
On Aug. 23, Mr. Kennedy put his campaign on hold and endorsed Mr. Trump. He left his name on many blue-state ballots but sought to remove it from ballots in swing states, where he is most likely to influence the election outcome.
In Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina, Democratic officials say they are following state laws by refusing Mr. Kennedy’s effort to get his name off the ballot. Republicans disagree.
Don M. Millis and two other Republican-appointed members of the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission voted last week to remove Mr. Kennedy’s name from the state’s presidential ballot at the candidate’s request.
Mr. Millis said the ballot had not been printed yet. Wisconsin ballots must be delivered to municipal clerks by Sept. 18, leaving plenty of time for changes.
The three Democrats on the panel defeated the Republican motion. They said Wisconsin law requires a candidate to remain on the ballot once they file a sufficient number of valid signatures unless the candidate dies.
“That is a perverse reading of the law,” Mr. Mills told The Washington Times. “Certainly, once the Elections Commission approves the candidates for the ballot and clerks begin printing, then it is too late to take someone off the ballot. If a candidate wants to withdraw before the ballot is set, a commonsense reading of the law mandates he or she not be placed on the ballot.”
Mr. Kennedy could play spoiler to Mr. Trump in the state, even though he has been promised a position on the former president’s transition team if Mr. Trump wins.
Wisconsin will likely produce one of the closest outcomes of the presidential race. In the past two presidential elections, the winner prevailed by less than 1% of the vote. Mr. Kennedy is polling at about 4% in Wisconsin, and polling trends suggest his supporters would pick Mr. Trump over Ms. Harris if his name were not on the ballot.
Ronald Heuer, president of Wisconsin Voter Alliance, an election integrity watchdog organization, said the commission followed the law by requiring Mr. Kennedy’s name to stay on the ballot.
The decision nonetheless appears political, he said.
“If the tables were turned on the Kennedy issue to where it helped the Democrats, they would have found a way to bend the law to suit the Democrats’ need,” he said.
Mr. Heuer said the Wisconsin Elections Commission is extremely partisan.
At the same meeting, Republicans blocked Democrats on the commission from removing Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West from the ballot. The two candidates are considered more likely to draw votes away from Ms. Harris.
Critics said politics also played a role in keeping Mr. Kennedy’s name on the ballots in Michigan and North Carolina, two additional swing states that will play outsized roles in determining the winner of the presidential race.
On Tuesday, a Michigan judge ruled that Mr. Kennedy’s name must remain on the ballot. Mr. Kennedy had challenged a decision by Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, to leave his name on the ballot despite his request to have it removed.
A spokeswoman for Ms. Benson said Mr. Kennedy’s argument that he should have his name stripped off the ballot defies state law.
Mr. Kennedy was nominated by the Natural Law Party earlier this year.
“We appreciate Mr. Kennedy’s dilemma,” spokeswoman Angela Benander said. “However, Michigan election law is clear. [It] explicitly states that once a political party formally nominates and certifies a candidate, as the Natural Law Party did here, and that candidate accepts the nomination, as Kennedy did in April 2024, that candidate ‘shall not be permitted to withdraw.’ Based on this language, Mr. Kennedy’s request to withdraw from the November ballot was rejected.”
Michigan is expected to produce a close outcome. In 2020, Mr. Biden won the state by a margin of less than 3%.
Mr. Kennedy last week sued North Carolina’s Democratic-led election board after it voted along party lines to reject his request to remove his name from the ballot, where he is listed as a third-party candidate.
Mr. Trump won North Carolina in 2020 by a 1.4% margin.
Democratic officials on the board said reprinting more than 1.7 million ballots and mailing them on time to absentee voters would have been too difficult.
Trump supporters say the move to keep Mr. Kennedy’s name on the three swing-state ballots appears particularly partisan because the Democrats switched their presidential nominee just a few weeks ago without any ballot hassles.
“If they can’t remove RFK Jr.’s name from the ballot, then they shouldn’t be able to remove Joe Biden’s name,” Ryan Fournier, the chairman of Students for Trump, posted on X.
State officials said the Democrats nominated Ms. Harris to the top of the ticket in time to meet ballot deadlines. She officially won the nomination in a virtual vote certified by the Democratic National Committee on Aug. 6.
In Michigan, state party conventions choose the candidates no later than 60 days before the election.
“Kamala Harris was nominated by the Michigan Democratic Party at its state convention on Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024,” Ms. Benson said. “Joe Biden was not officially nominated in 2024 by either the Michigan Democratic Party or the Democratic National Committee. Vice President Harris is the only nominee put forth by the party this year, so there hasn’t been a ‘switch’ under the law.”
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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