Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspends White House bid, endorses Trump
GLENDALE, ARIZONA—Robert F. Kennedy Jr., scion of America’s storied political clan, suspended his presidential bid on Friday and endorsed Donald Trump, injecting new uncertainty into the White House race.
“I no longer believe that I have a realistic path of electoral victory,” Kennedy, who was polling in the low single digits, said at a press conference in swing state Arizona.
Kennedy, 70, condemned the selection of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic standard-bearer without a primary contest and cited a long list of grievances against his former party that he said had “departed so dramatically from the core values that I grew up with.”
The Democratic Party has “become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big ag(riculture), big money,” he said.
He said he left the party and decided to run as an independent when it “abandoned democracy by canceling the primary to conceal the cognitive decline” of President Joe Biden.
At Trump’s campaign in Arizona, Kennedy noted the issues that bound them together: “Having safe food and ending the chronic disease epidemic.”
Family opposition
The son of the murdered Sen. Robert Francis Kennedy and nephew of assassinated John F. Kennedy drew the opposition of most of his famous family.
“Our brother Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear,” five of his siblings said in a joint statement in which they endorsed Harris. “It is a sad ending to a sad story.”
Kennedy’s withdrawal came a day after Vice President Kamala Harris gave an electrifying speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, accepting the party’s nomination and embarking on the final 10-week sprint to election day on Nov. 5.
Analysts are mixed on the effect Kennedy’s exit will have on the presidential race and how much of his supporters will gravitate to Trump or Harris.
However, in a very tight contest, it is possible that even a few thousand votes in a crucial swing state could determine who wins the White House, as both sides chase the sliver of undecideds.
