In his final push to help get Donald Trump elected, former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pleading with his supporters not to vote for him.
RFK Jr remains a threat to the Republican candidate’s chances because he remains on the ballot Wisconsin and Michigan despite pleading with authorities to remove him when he backed Trump. Given how close the election is expected to be in swing states, every vote counts – even ones cast for the former independent Kennedy.
“Don’t vote for me. If you want to see me in Washington, DC, VOTE FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP,” Kennedy wrote in a post on X on Tuesday, hours before polls closed around the United States.
Kennedy, who withdrew his independent campaign for president in August to endorse Trump
“This is a kind of election interference [Democrats are] trying to deprive the American public of their – You know I’m not running for president why would they want a candidate on the ballot who is not running for president and it’s election interference they’re trying to confuse the voters,” Kennedy told Fox News on Sunday.
The former candidate and anti-vaxer said he’s “concerned” about his name remaining on the ballot in battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin because it could impact Trump’s performance.
Emerging as a fringe candidate who promotes health-related conspiracy theories, Kennedy’s campaign immediately appealed to a faction of Americans who also support Trump – posing a problem for the Republican nominee’s campaign.
The two candidates eventually chose to team up and Trump offered Kennedy a role on his presidential transition team. The former president has also teased a potential formal cabinet position for Kennedy related to healthcare.
But because Kennedy had already submitted paperwork to appear on the ballot in Wisconsin and Michigan, per state laws he was legally required to remain on it. Despite his legal challenges, judges in both states agreed he did not have the grounds to remove his name and it would cause chaos too close to the election.
Already, more than one million voters in Michigan had returned absentee ballots that featured Kennedy’s name. In Wisconsin, it was more than 858,000 absentee ballots.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court formally ended Kennedy’s challenges to remove his name, rejecting to intervene in his emergency request.
Despite multiple judges weighing in on the issue, the former presidential candidate has continued to allege Democrats have purposefully kept his name on the ballot in order to confuse voters and potentially take votes away from Trump.
Only official election results will determine just how impactful Kennedy’s suspended campaign will be on Trump’s active campaign.
The Republican and Democratic Parties often discourage third-party candidates from running because they can take votes away from the major candidates. In 2016, famously, Green Party candidate Jill Stein contributed to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s loss.
