Supporters React to RFK Jr. Suspending Campaign, Backing Trump

Since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced he is suspending his campaign in battleground states and will back former President Trump’s White House bid, the reaction from supporters of the independent presidential candidate has been wide-ranging.

On Aug. 23, Kennedy said that he is withdrawing his name from ballots in battleground states “where my presence would be a spoiler.”

He urged voters in those states not to vote for him.

Kennedy added that his name will remain on ballots in all other states and that voters could select him over Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Over the course of the Kennedy campaign, a majority of attendees at his campaign events interviewed by The Epoch Times said they voted for Trump in 2020. In an interview with Dr. Phil released on Aug. 25, Kennedy said his campaign’s polling indicated that, if he left the race in the swing states, 57 percent of those voters would cast their ballot for Trump.

Wes Farno, an Ohio-based Republican strategist, told The Epoch Times on Aug. 25 that he believes Kennedy’s backing of Trump will have a significant impact on the election and will increase Trump’s support by 3 percent to 4 percent in the swing states.

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Michelle Cotterman said she was “thrilled” when she learned that Kennedy was running for president.

A registered nurse, a certified natural health professional, and a medical freedom advocate in Ohio, Cotterman met Kennedy at an autism conference and invited him to address Ohio state legislators about issues such as vaccine choice and informed consent.

“We’ve never had a presidential candidate who was invested in and deeply understood medical freedom, parental rights with vaccine choice, and making informed decisions regarding vaccine and health issues. Bobby is our voice,” she told The Epoch Times earlier this year.

Ohio is one of the battleground states where Kennedy is expected to withdraw his name from the ballot. Cotterman had planned to cast her vote for Kennedy but is now undecided. She told The Epoch Times that she thinks some of Kennedy’s supporters will vote for Trump, as it appears the former president will give Kennedy a prominent role in his administration if he wins.

“I’ve seen Bobby make a lot of speeches over the years, but when he announced why he was suspending his campaign, it was a new level with passion and emotion,” Cotterman told The Epoch Times. “You could tell by the tone of his voice, and his words, that it was a difficult decision.”

Chronic Disease Focus

Kennedy explained in the address that Trump asked him to be part of his administration if the former president wins in November.

The “chronic disease crisis” is a primary reason why Kennedy ran for president, he said.

“If President Trump is elected and honors his word, the vast burden of chronic disease that now demoralizes and bankrupts the country will disappear.”

When asked if they would now cast their ballot for Trump, several Kennedy supporters told The Epoch Times they would be interested—with a caveat: The former president must follow through with what he said when he welcomed Kennedy on stage during an Aug. 23 rally in Arizona a few hours after Kennedy said he was suspending his campaign.

Trump told the crowd that he would establish a panel of top experts working with Kennedy “to investigate what is causing the decades-long increase in chronic health problems and childhood diseases.”

Some Kennedy supporters are hesitant to trust Trump because of his role in introducing Operation Warp Speed, the project that ushered in COVID-19 vaccines, and what reportedly happened between Kennedy and Trump after the former president was first elected.

Trump tasked Kennedy to head a vaccine safety commission, Kennedy said. Trump reversed course after receiving backlash when news of the appointment broke, Kennedy said. Trump eventually named Alex Azar, who served as president of the largest division of Eli Lilly and Company, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb to direct the Food and Drug Administration, Kennedy said.

Trump’s transition team denied Kennedy’s claims. Kennedy has frequently criticized Trump on the campaign trail for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and “adding to the swamp.”

Anna Matson, a 27-year-old market researcher and podcaster in Michigan, is a Kennedy campaign volunteer.

“As someone who has volunteered for over a year with the campaign and has every right to be angry at this decision, I am strangely at peace. I feel like this is just the start of this great movement,” Matson told The Epoch Times.

Matson added that she is not prepared to announce her vote.

“This all rides on the notion of Trump keeping his word and his supporters in blue states helping us create a true third party,” Matson said. “Many Kennedy supporters do not trust Trump because he promised to release the JFK files and work on the chronic disease epidemic the first time, but he didn’t.

“We don’t know he will actually do it this time. But if Trump supporters are willing to hold him accountable and help us create our third party, this business transaction could work.”

Independent Candidacy

Kennedy announced his candidacy to challenge President Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic Party nomination in Boston in April 2023.

Kennedy cited his intent to unify the country and help restore traditional values to a party that had “lost its way” since his uncle, John F. Kennedy, was president in the early 1960s and his father, Robert F. Kennedy, ran for president in 1968.

Most political pundits and officials from the Democratic and Republican parties dismissed Kennedy as a fringe candidate at the time. In the early months of his campaign, though, he gained support from conservatives, moderate Republicans, independents, and moderate Democrats.

After encountering multiple hurdles by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and accusing the organization of “rigging the primary,” including by not allowing any candidate to compete against President Biden, Kennedy switched to independent last October.

Earlier this year, the DNC announced the creation of a team to counter third-party and independent presidential candidates. It hired a veteran Democrat strategist to spearhead an aggressive communication plan to combat Kennedy, independent candidate Cornel West, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein.

In recent months, the DNC has backed lawsuits in multiple states aimed at removing Kennedy from the ballot. He was in the midst of lawsuits in Pennsylvania and New York last week.

“Each time that our volunteers turned in those towering boxes of signatures needed to get on the ballot, the DNC dragged us into court … attempting to erase their work and to subvert the will of the voters who had signed those petitions,” Kennedy said in his Aug. 23 speech.

David Carlucci, a former Democratic New York state senator who is now a Democratic political strategist, told The Epoch Times that Kennedy’s support for Trump “changes little in the grand scheme.”

“Polls show that the dwindling number of RFK Jr. supporters are splitting between Harris and Trump, with analysts agreeing that his exit will have minimal impact by Election Day,” he said.

Carlucci pointed to an August Pew Research analysis that Kennedy supporters are far less motivated to vote compared to Trump and Harris supporters. “This lack of enthusiasm means that his supporters are less likely to significantly influence the outcome in battleground states, making their overall impact negligible.”

Kristen Taylor, who lives in South Carolina and backs Kennedy, told The Epoch Times that she feels “sad” that the independent candidate has suspended his campaign, but is hopeful that a collaboration with Trump will lead to improvements in the chronic disease epidemic and toxins in the environment.

“I do think the majority of RFK supporters will vote for Trump,” she said. “Trump’s pledge to appoint Kennedy to lead a panel to address chronic disease is a good thing, and their working together gives me more hope than I’ve had in a long time.”

Eric Wilson echoed sentiments shared by some Kennedy supporters.

“I’ve always had the feeling he wasn’t beholden to any political machine, and wasn’t afraid to ruffle feathers,” Wilson told The Epoch Times about why he was planning to vote for Kennedy.

“I was a Trump supporter before. I feel like there is too much chaos around him, but I like him by far over Harris,” he said.

‘We the People’

In his Aug. 23 address, Kennedy said that he met with Trump to discuss joining forces in a “unity party,” which Kennedy noted is what happened when Abraham Lincoln ran for president with Andrew Jackson.

Kennedy’s campaign submitted paperwork to create the “We The People” political party in January.

The campaign said that filing for political party status in certain states reduced the number of signatures required for the candidate to gain ballot access.

Lauren Lee is a political theorist and podcaster who lives in Virginia. She is an ardent Kennedy supporter who told The Epoch Times she will remain committed to growing the We The People Party and helping Kennedy get 5 percent of the vote, a threshold for minor parties to get federal funding.

She noted that it is inaccurate to say that Kennedy dropped out of the race. He suspended his campaign in battleground states, Lee pointed out, but he can still get at least 5 percent of the vote if supporters in deep red or blue states vote for Kennedy.

“The long-term strategy is to beat the two-party system altogether. To do that, we must have a strong third party, and we can only do that by reaching 5 percent of the vote nationally,” Lee said.

“If we don’t have that, we’re going to continue to face these challenges every time an independent candidate runs for office where we’re warring against the DNC and we’re in this huge battle for ballot access, state by state.”

Earlier this month, Kennedy reported that his campaign had collected enough signatures to appear on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. He also noted that his campaign had gathered more than one million signatures, demonstrating the “widespread grassroots support.”

Lee said the visibility that Kennedy received in his Aug. 23 speech, followed by his address later that night when he joined Trump on the rally stage, could benefit him in the remaining weeks of the 2024 election.

“That was the first time that many Americans had ever heard him speak. I’ve been inundated with friends and family texting me, saying, ‘Wow, this is the president we needed. Why hadn’t we heard from him until today?’” Lee told The Epoch Times.

“Kennedy presented an opportunity to vote based on hope and not just out of fear of the other guy,” Lee said. “I hope that we do get that 5 percent so that in the future, citizens will be able to vote truly out of hope and not just because they want the other guy to lose.”

Kristen Soha told The Epoch Times that she has historically voted for Democrats in presidential elections but had planned to cast her ballot for Kennedy.

Soha noted that many friends who are Kennedy supporters “are upset and don’t know what to do.” Some of those people said they are voting for independent Cornel West, Soha said.

“I still can’t reconcile this but think it’s a good chance to get people talking about the divide and where people from different parties actually have similar values in certain areas,” she said.

“I deeply want people to find common ground,” Soha said. “That is the only way to change this country.

“And if Bobby felt so deeply inspired to run for president, despite how it ended for his family in the past, then maybe this is the ultimate reason. If it can be for that, then it will have been enough.”

The DNC did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.