RFK Jr. has endorsed the Republican candidate, but will it be enough to tip the scales against the media-hyped Kamala Harris?
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign got the boost it desperately needed when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joined forces with the former president in an effort to ensure the defeat of Kamala Harris.
It was undoubtedly a painful sight for millions of diehard Democrats to behold: On Friday, the estranged Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shared the stage with former President Donald Trump at a sprawling rally in Arizona, hours after he’d suspended his independent presidential campaign and announced that he was endorsing the rabble-rousing Republican.
The 70-year-old independent, showing that he has not completely lost his presidential ambitions, emphasized that he is suspending his campaign — “not ending it.”
“I am not terminating my campaign, I am simply suspending it and not ending it. My name will remain on the ballot in most states,” he said.
Importantly for Trump in his grueling showdown with Kamala Harris, Kennedy said he would drop his name from the ballot in 10 battleground states where his presence could have stolen electoral college votes from the former president.
Will the entrance of Kennedy into the equation make a profound difference for the Trump campaign come November? It’s difficult to say. When the campaign was down to a contest between two elderly white men, many voters seemed happy to consider a third voice, as reflected in Kennedy’s relatively high poll numbers earlier in the year. However, once Joe Biden was sent back to the basement and Kamala Harris was catapulted to the political forefront amid heavily scripted, media-generated enthusiasm (the same media, by the way, which Harris stubbornly refuses to talk to), Kennedy’s popularity began to wane.
While Kennedy’s performance in the polls has been steadily declining – a recent CBS News poll measured his support at just 2% – even this limited number could spell the difference between victory and defeat in a race that promises to be razor-close. However, with regard to the critical swing states, the picture improves dramatically for Kennedy. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed him with 6% support in Arizona and Nevada and 5% in Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. And let’s not forget that Arizona and Georgia were decided by fewer than 12,000 votes each in 2020. Wisconsin has been decided by fewer than 23,000 votes in the last two presidential elections.
