Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “suspended” his presidential campaign Friday afternoon and threw his weight behind former president Donald Trump, announcing that he would remove his name from the ballot in battleground states to avoid helping Kamala Harris, the candidate he views as the most significant threat to his populist political project.
Kennedy, who will remain on the ballot in non-battleground states as a protest candidate, launched his quixotic run for America’s highest office after boosting his national profile during the Covid pandemic. Already a prominent vaccine skeptic and a scion of America’s most famous political dynasty, Kennedy emerged as a leader of the populist backlash against pandemic lockdowns and vaccine mandates, writing a bestselling book, The Real Anthony Fauci, which cast the face of the federal government’s Covid response as a power-hungry bureaucrat intent on using health emergencies as a pretext to control the public.
After making a splash through his appearances in independent media and building a following among well-heeled Silicon Valley donors, Kennedy abandoned his effort to get on the Democratic primary ballot, accusing the party of sabotaging him. Having failed to gain traction as an independent candidate and with his campaign coffers near empty, Kennedy finally announced the suspension of his campaign in an upbeat speech from Phoenix, Arizona, in which he argued that he and his supporters succeeded in shaking up America’s political establishment.
“We proved them wrong,” Kennedy said of the those who doubted his ability to mount a campaign as an independent. “We did it because, beneath the radar of mainstream media organs, we inspired a massive political movement.”
Kennedy went on to attack Democrats for “disenfranchising American voters” by swapping in Kamala Harris for Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, casting the party he called home for decades as a corrupt cabal of elites who carefully stage manage the political process through their influence over the media.
“The mainstream media was once the guardian of the First Amendment and democratic principles, and it’s joined this systemic attack on democracy,” Kennedy said. “The media justifies their censorship on the grounds of combatting misinformation, but governments and oppressors don’t censor lies, they don’t fear lies, they fear the truth and that’s what they censor.”
Early polling suggested Kennedy was grabbing a sizable chunk of the Democratic electorate, prompting the party to launch an aggressive opposition-research campaign against him. The Kennedy family’s goodwill with Democratic voters and a lack of familiarity with his more controversial views resulted in strong polling among Democrats early in the campaign. Members of his family have criticized his campaign publicly, but Kennedy maintains that he cares more about the support from his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, and his children from a previous marriage.
National polling also showed that Kennedy was receiving support from Republicans after he became a fan favorite with some conservatives, particularly because of his opposition to coronavirus restrictions and U.S. funding for Ukraine’s war against Russia. Trump began attacking Kennedy’s past progressive stances once it became apparent that his campaign was drawing support from Republicans.
Now, Kennedy is endorsing Trump because he believes Trump is the better option for protecting free speech, protecting children, and ending the war in Ukraine. Free speech became a central issue for Kennedy when it became apparent that Biden administration officials pressured Facebook into censoring him for spreading “disinformation” about the coronavirus.
“Three great causes drove me to enter this race in the first place, primarily and these are the principle causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic party and run as an independent and now to throw my support to President Trump, the causes were free speech, a war in Ukraine, and the war on our children,” Kennedy said.
Towards the end of his speech, Kennedy laid out his plan to help Trump tackle the close relationship between pharmaceutical companies and the government agencies tasked with regulating them, an issue Kennedy frequently connects to his anti-vaccine activism.
Kennedy talks often about the inspiration he receives from the political careers of his father Bobby Kennedy and uncle John F. Kennedy. Kennedy’s father was assassinated in the middle of his 1968 presidential campaign and his uncle was killed during his presidency, an event that remains embedded in the American conscience.
Republican megadonor Timothy Mellon poured tens of millions into Kennedy’s campaign, while simultaneously giving Trump over $100 million to date through a Super PAC. Kennedy’s campaign was also bankrolled by his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, a Silicon Valley attorney and ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Shanahan said earlier this week Kennedy’s campaign was exploring the possibility of joining forces with Trump.
Kennedy has faced accusations of sexual assault and widespread mockery over his admission that he had a worm in his brain that affected his mental functioning. Kennedy, a Catholic, admitted he is “not a church boy” and has skeletons in his closet when asked about the sexual-assault allegations during an interview with the Breaking Points political podcast.
The mockery continued when Kennedy revealed his role in placing a dead bear cub in New York City’s Central Park, getting ahead of a story on the unsolved mystery that perplexed the big apple a decade ago.
Democrats have attacked Kennedy on issues such as his alleged sexual assault, ties to Trump donors, opposition to vaccines, flip-flops on abortion, and overtures to 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Across numerous states, Democrats fought Kennedy’s attempts to get on the ballot, draining his campaign of resources and momentum.
“The more voters learned about RFK Jr. the less they liked him. Donald Trump isn’t earning an endorsement that’s going to help build support, he’s inheriting the baggage of a failed fringe candidate. Good riddance,” said DNC senior advisor Mary Beth Cahill in a statement.
Controversially, the Biden administration denied Kennedy’s request for Secret Service protection, disregarding the contentious election cycle and his family history, until the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump. Private security ended up being another major expenditure for Kennedy’s campaign, as he openly speculated about the possibility of getting killed on the trail.
These past few months, Kennedy’s polling numbers and favorability rating have declined, especially among Democrats as they gained more exposure to him from Democratic media allies and well-coordinated online meme campaigns.
Recent polls have looked even worse for Kennedy following Biden’s choice to step aside from the presidential race and the newfound Democratic exuberance for Harris.