Independent candidate for President of the United States Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suspending his campaign and has expressed his support for the Republican candidate for the White House, Donald Trump. Kennedy made the announcement in an expected speech in Arizona, according to news agencies.
“I am not ending my campaign. I simply suspended her,” Kennedy said. He added that he has started a process that will lead to the deletion of his name from the candidates in ten American states, which tend to be crucial for the outcome of presidential elections. “I no longer believe in my heart that I have a realistic path to electoral victory,” Kennedy said.
To end his candidacy in the so-called swing states, i.e. states that are not long-term strongholds of one or the other major political party and which tend to be decisive in the American electoral system, Kennedy decided not to contribute to the victory of Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris in the November elections. Kennedy, on the other hand, wants to keep his name on the ballots in states that are traditionally Democratic strongholds.
Trump is scheduled to speak at a campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona, in a few hours, and his campaign said he will be a “special guest” at the event. The Trump campaign did not respond to the AP’s question whether it was Kennedy who was invited.
Kennedy voters
Kennedy’s leaning toward Trump could bring new voters to the Republican nominee this late in the presidential campaign. However, according to AP, this increase in support would not be significant at all.
Igor Lukeš, a professor of history and international relations from Boston University, pointed out that he is unable to speculate on who Kennedy’s voters will vote for, or whether they will even come to the polls. Former Czech ambassador to the US and foreign policy adviser to the president, Michael Žantovský, agreed that it was unclear how Kennedy’s support would be split between the two candidates — even though he expressed support for Trump.
“It is true that the voter share represented by Kennedy is something between four and five percent – according to a public opinion poll,” Žantovský recalled. According to him, Kennedy is “a very special figure on the American political scene.”
“It is completely unreadable. He is a person who has no political career behind him,” said Lukeš in Kennedy’s address. He recalled that in the past – even before the covid-19 pandemic – Kennedy was a supporter of the “conspiracy theory that various types of vaccinations caused a wave of autism around the world”.
Kennedy originally wanted to challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, but later switched to running as an independent.
