Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suspending his presidential campaign and throwing his support to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
His disclosure that he was ending his candidacy came in a court filing in Pennsylvania, in which he said he was endorsing the former president.
In the filing dated Friday, Kennedy said that “as a result of today’s endorsement of Donald Trump for the office of President of the United States,” he and running mate Nicole Shanahan were withdrawing their petition to appear on Pennsylvania’s presidential ballot.
Kennedy, speaking about his withdrawal in Arizona, said, “In my heart, I no longer believe that I have a realistic path to electoral victory.”
He added, “I cannot in good conscience ask my staff and volunteers to keep working their long hours or ask my donors to keep giving when I cannot honestly tell them that I have a real path to the White House.”
Kennedy said three issues encouraged him to leave the Democratic Party “and now, to throw my support to President Trump.” Those issues are free speech, the war in Ukraine, and the “war on our children.”
But RFK Jr. also said he wasn’t “terminating” his campaign, merely suspending it, and he would remain on the ballot in many states. But he also said, “In about 10 battleground states where my presence would be a spoiler, I’m going to remove my name, and I’ve already started the process.” He said voters in red states and blue states could vote vote for him “without harming or helping President Trump or or Vice President Harris.”
And he held out the distant possibility that if neither Trump nor Harris were able to win 270 electoral votes, tying 269 to 269, “I could conceivably still end up in the White House in a contingent election.”
Kennedy’s campaign had been seeking ballot access in states including Arizona as recently as this week, although he filed paperwork Thursday evening to withdraw his candidacy in the battleground state — a foreshadowing of his announcement. When he suspended his campaign, he was on the ballot in over 23 states and awaiting confirmation in another 22.
He will be on the ballot in the battleground state of Michigan, however.
“He cannot withdraw at this point,” a spokesperson from Michigan’s office of the secretary of state. “His name will remain on the ballot.”
RFK Jr. claimed that “in an honest system, I believe that I would have won the election.”
He blasted the Democratic Party — his former party and that of his father and uncle — saying that it has become “the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big tech, big ag and big money.”
Kennedy thanked his staffers for their tireless work these months.
“You carried me off that glass mountain,” he said.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.