The political spotlight will be on Democrat turned independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Friday, in what many expect will be an announcement that he is ending his White House bid.
Kennedy’s campaign says their candidate “will address the nation live on Friday about the present historical moment and his path forward.”
On the eve of his event in Arizona, Kennedy moved to withdraw his name from the state’s ballot – which appeared to be another signal of his intent to drop out of the race.
However, the biggest question surrounding Kennedy’s anticipated exit from the 2024 race is whether it will give former President Donald Trump a small but potentially significant boost in his showdown against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Pointing back to the previous two presidential elections, veteran Republican strategist and Fox News contributor Karl Rove spotlighted the influential role third party candidates played.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at the Libertarian National Convention on May 24, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“[Green Party candidate} Jill Stein got more votes in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania than Hillary Clinton lost those states by,” Rove noted as he pointed to Trump’s victory over the Democrats’ 2016 presidential nominee.
Rove added that “in 2020, Jo Jorgensen, the Libertarian candidate, got more votes in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin than Donald Trump lost those states by. And in each instance, that was the difference between winning and losing.”
Kennedy, the longtime environmental activist and high-profile vaccine skeptic, who is the scion of the nation’s most storied political dynasty, launched his long-shot campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in April of last year. However, last October, the 70-year-old candidate switched to an independent run for the White House.
While Kennedy had long identified as a Democrat and repeatedly invoked his late father – Sen. Robert F. Kennedy – and his uncle – former President John F. Kennedy – who were both assassinated in the 1960s – Kennedy in recent years built relationships with far-right leaders.
President Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee for months repeatedly slammed Kennedy as a potential spoiler whose supporters could hand Trump a presidential election victory in November.
However, Kennedy remained a thorn in Biden’s side from last year through the president’s announcement last month that he was ending his re-election bid and endorsing Harris.
Former President Donald Trump laughs while responding to a question from a reporter after his remarks on Aug. 20, 2024 at the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office in Howell, Michigan. (Photo by Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
The Trump campaign also started taking aim at Kennedy after he switched to an independent run, labeling him a member of the “radical left,” and criticizing him for his environmental activism.
However, the relationship between Kennedy and Trump started warming earlier this year, and the two spoke last month after the assassination attempt against Trump and met in person the following day.
Earlier this week, Kennedy running mate Nicole Shanahan sparked headlines by saying in a podcast interview that the campaign was considering whether to “join forces” with Trump to prevent the possibility of Harris winning the 2024 election.
“If he endorsed me, I would be honored by it. I would be very honored by it. He really has his heart in the right place,” Trump said on Thursday in an interview on “Fox and Friends.”
Kennedy’s event is being held in Phoenix a couple of hours before Trump holds a rally in nearby Glendale.
“President Trump will be joined by a special guest as he delivers remarks about his America First policies and his vision to lower inflation and the cost of living, secure the border, and make our cities safe again,” a release from the former president’s campaign announced on Thursday, which sparked more speculation about a potential Kennedy endorsement.
Trump called in to Fox News following Vice President Kamala Harris’ nominating acceptance speech on Thursday night. Noting that Trump and Kennedy would be in the same state, Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha McCallum asked Trump if Kennedy would endorse him on Friday, and the former President replied coyly, “It’s possible we will be meeting tomorrow, and we’ll be discussing it.”
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Kennedy’s campaign has been cratering in recent months. The last public event put on by Kennedy’s campaign came on July 9, in Freeport, Maine. However, even before that, his poll numbers – which once stood in the teens – had faded.
The most recent Fox News national poll, conducted Aug. 9-12, indicated Kennedy at 6% support.
His fundraising was also sinking, with campaign finance reports indicating he had just $3.9 million cash on hand as of the start of July, with nearly $3.5 million in debt.
Well-known non-partisan political handicapper Larry Sabato argued in a social media post that “Kennedy is barely relevant.”
“He can’t transfer much support, esp. to Trump. His backers will splinter,” Sabato predicted.
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes a campaign announcement at a press conference on Oct. 9, 2023 in Philadelphia. (Photo by Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images)
Rove, the mastermind behind former President George W. Bush’s two White House election victories, said that if Kennedy “does endorse Trump, my sense is the people who were supporting him because he was a Kennedy, and they didn’t like Biden, have dissipated over the last four to five weeks and his supporters are probably people more inclined to vote for Trump than Harris.”
Alex Castellanos, the veteran Republican consultant who served in leading positions on the campaigns of four GOP presidential nominees, said that if Kennedy drops out and backs Trump, “it could help in two ways.
“One is he’s an outsider and Trump’s an outsider. RFK got drop-kicked out of the Democratic establishment, so the anti-Washington message that Trump has is amplified,” Castellanos argued.
He added that “more importantly, RFK is the K in Kennedy and that brand still has magic. That brand is Camelot. It’s what could have been and was interrupted. It’s a promise about the future, and you need know who needs optimism and someone to help him get to the future is Donald Trump. I think the brand is more important than the one or two percent he might bring to the Trump campaign.”
Democratic strategist Marie Harf, a Fox News contributor, said that “Democrats are curious what will happen if and when he [Kennedy] drops out, because if him being in the race was taking votes from Trump, those votes will go back to Trump now.”
“It’s already a tight race and will get even tighter if all the RFK votes go to Trump,” Harf emphasized.
