Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. suspended his campaign Friday and endorsed former President Donald Trump, but he will remain on the ballot in Maine unless he withdraws by 5pm on Tuesday.
RFK Jr. announced his decision at an address to the nation in downtown Phoenix, Ariz., a state where Trump is set to hold a rally later in the day alongside an unnamed “special guest.”
Kennedy said that he will not be terminating his campaign, but will be removing his name from the ballot in 10 battleground states so as not to function as a “spoiler” in favor of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
“My name will remain on the ballot in most states. If you live in a blue state, you can vote for me without harming or helping president Trump or vice president Harris,” Kennedy said.
Although RFK Jr. did not specifically name Maine, the state split Electoral College votes between Trump and his Democratic opponents in 2016 and 2020, and is expected to do so again.
In a close vote, RFK Jr. presence or absence from the ballot could potential make the difference in an election.
“In about 10 battleground states where my presence would be a spoiler, I’m going to remove my name, and I’ve already started that process and urge voters not to vote for me,” he added.
In his address, Kennedy railed against the Democratic Party — the party of his assassinated uncle President John F. Kennedy and father Robert F. Kennedy — saying that the Democrats have abandoned their “core values.”
“I attended my first Democratic convention at the age of six in 1960 and back then, the Democrats were the champions of the constitution of civil rights. The Democrats stood against authoritarianism, against censorship, against colonialism, imperialism and unjust wars,” he said.
RFK Jr., who initially launched his presidential campaign in April of last year seeking the Democratic nomination, left the party to run as an independent in October.
“As you know, I left that party in October because it had departed so dramatically on the core values that I grew up with,” RFK Jr. said on Friday.
“It had become the party of war, censorship, corruption, Big Pharma, Big Tech…and Big Money,” he continued. “When it abandoned democracy by cancelling the primary to conceal the cognitive decline of the sitting president, I left the party to run as an independent.”
Kennedy said that both President Trump and himself have faced “continual legal warfare” from the Democrats.
“In the name of saving democracy, the Democratic Party set itself to dismantling it,” he said.
The 70-year-old environmental lawyer and vaccine skeptic claimed the Democratic Party and the media “engineered a surge of popularity” for Vice President Kamala Harris based upon “no policies, no interviews, no debates — only smoke in mirrors.”
“Who needs a policy when you have Trump to hate?” Kennedy quipped.
Earlier this week Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump signaled that he would be open to potentially offering Kennedy a position in his administration if he dropped out and endorsed him.
“I like him, and I respect him,” Trump told CNN in an interview after a campaign stop in Michigan on Tuesday.
“He’s a brilliant guy. He’s a very smart guy. I’ve known him for a very long time,” Trump said. “I didn’t know he was thinking about getting out, but if he is thinking about getting out, certainly I’d be open to it.”
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