Robert Kennedy suspends presidential run, throws support behind Trump

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suspended his independent campaign for president and endorsed Republican Donald Trump, a late-stage shakeup of the presidential race that could give the former president a modest boost from Kennedy’s supporters.

Kennedy said on Friday his internal polls had shown that his presence in the race would hurt Trump and help Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. However, recent public polls don’t clearly indicate that he is having an outsize impact on support for either major-party candidate.

Kennedy cited free speech, the war in Ukraine and "a war on our children" as among the reasons he would try to remove his name from the ballot in battleground states.

"These are the principal causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent, and now to throw my support to President Trump," Kennedy said.

Withdrawing his candidacy

However, he made clear that he wasn't formally ending his bid and said his supporters could continue to back him in the majority of states where they are unlikely to sway the outcome.

Kennedy took steps to withdraw his candidacy in at least two states late this week, Arizona and Pennsylvania, but in the battlegrounds of Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, election officials said it’s too late for him to take his name off the ballot even if he wants to do so.

Kennedy said his actions followed conversations with Trump over the past few weeks. He cast their alliance as "a unity party," an arrangement that would "allow us to disagree publicly and privately and seriously."

Hours after Kennedy made his announcement in Phoenix, Trump was to hold a rally in neighbouring Glendale. Trump’s campaign teased that he would be joined by "a special guest," though neither campaign responded to messages about whether Kennedy would be that guest.

A year ago, some would have thought it inconceivable that a member of arguably the most storied family in Democratic politics would work with Trump to keep a Democrat out of the White House. Even in recent months, Kennedy has accused Trump of betraying his followers, while Trump has criticized Kennedy as "the most radical left candidate in the race."

Five of Kennedy’s family members issued a statement on Friday calling his support for Trump "a sad ending to a sad story."

The Kennedy and Trump campaigns have ramped up their compliments of each other and engaged in behind-the-scenes discussions in recent weeks, according to those familiar with the efforts.

Both campaigns have spent months accusing Democrats of weaponising the legal system for their own benefit. And both have hinted publicly that they could be open to joining forces, with the shared goal of limiting Harris' chances.

Role in Trump administration?

Last month, during the Republican National Convention, Kennedy’s son posted and then quickly deleted a video showing a phone call between Kennedy and Trump, in which the former president appeared to try to talk Kennedy into siding with him.

Talks between the two camps continued, with close Trump allies quietly lobbying Kennedy to drop out of the race and support the Republican nominee, according to a person familiar with the efforts who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Trump told CNN on Tuesday that he would "love" an endorsement from Kennedy, whom he called a "brilliant guy." He also said he would "certainly" be open to Kennedy playing a role in his administration if Kennedy dropped out and endorsed him.

Kennedy's running mate, Nicole Shanahan, also suggested on a podcast this week that his campaign might "walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump." While she clarified that she is not personally in talks with Trump, she entertained the idea that Kennedy could join Trump's administration as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

At Kennedy's Phoenix event, 38-year-old Casey Westerman, a Chandler, Arizona, resident who works in software sales, said she trusted Kennedy’s judgment and had planned to vote for him, but would support Trump if Kennedy said that was who he was endorsing.

"My decision would really be based on who he thinks is best suited to run this country," said Westerman, who wore a “Kennedy 2024” trucker hat and voted for Trump in the last two presidential elections.

Kennedy first entered the 2024 presidential race as a Democrat but left the party last fall to run as an independent. He built an unusually strong base for a third-party bid, fueled in part by anti-establishment voters and vaccine skeptics who have followed his anti-vaccine work since the COVID-19 pandemic. But he has since faced strained campaign finances and mounting legal chal lenges.

Recent polls put his support in the mid-single digits. And it's unclear if he’d get even that in a general election, since third-party candidates frequently don’t live up to their early poll numbers when voters actually cast their ballots.