Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has transitioned from a longtime Democratic Party insider to an independent presidential candidate to a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump — and he just announced a new tour to help shore up support.
Democrats are doing all they can to stop RFK, Jr.’s transition, and are waging a complex legal battle across multiple states as Kennedy attempts to remove his name from ballots in key battlegrounds.
On August 23, 2024, Kennedy suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed Trump, citing concerns that his presence on ballots in competitive states could “hand the election over to the Democrats.”
Kennedy’s efforts to withdraw from ballots have met with mixed results. In Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas, he successfully removed his name. However, in Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, Kennedy remains on the ballot despite his attempts to withdraw.
In Michigan, a judge ruled that “elections are not just games” and that the secretary of state “is not obligated to honor the whims of candidates for public office.”
North Carolina cited practical concerns, stating that millions of ballots had already been printed and that reprinting would lead to significant delays and additional costs.
Wisconsin law only allows candidate withdrawal in case of death.
In response to these challenges, Kennedy has pivoted to a new strategy.
He announced plans for a “Make America Healthy Again” tour, where he will campaign alongside Trump and his surrogates in battleground states with a message to his supporters: Elect Trump to put RFK, Jr. in Washington, D.C.
“We’re going to send a very strong message out that people who are my supporters, that we want them to vote for President Trump, that’s the only way to get me into Washington,” Kennedy told NewsNation.
He had a message for his supporters on how to get Trump election.
“So, I will be doing rallies in each of those states over the next 61 days,” he continued.
“We want to, if we’re going to accomplish the mission that I set out to accomplish when I got into this campaign — end the censorship, end the surveillance, to get out of the Ukraine war and unravel the war machine and the chronic disease epidemic — the only way to do that is to get President Trump in the White House and me into Washington.”
“So we’re going to pull out all the stops to make sure that happens,” RFK, Jr. said.
The Trump campaign has emphasized the importance of Kennedy voters to their cause by pointing out that, in 2016 Green Party candidate Jill Stein got just over 31,000 votes in Wisconsin.
That was more than Trump’s winning margin of over 22,000 votes.