Battenfeld: RFK Jr’s Trump endorsement throws a wrinkle in Kamala Harris’s coronation
Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s endorsement of Donald Trump throws another wrinkle into a race with many twists and turns, and this one may not go the Democrats’ way.
Kennedy suspended his campaign Monday with a stinging broadside aimed at the corrupt Democratic Party and mainstream media, saying they conspired to rig the election against him.
The longtime Democrat called that party “the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big ag and big money.”
“In an honest system, I believe I would have won the election,” he said. “I no longer believe that I have a realistic path of electoral victory in the face of this relentless, systematic censorship and media control.”
After months of blasting Kennedy and his views and portraying him as a crackpot, and trying aggressively to keep him off the ballot, even refusing to give him Secret Service protection, Democrats now insist the Trump endorsement is meaningless. CNN cut away from its coverage of Kennedy’s announcement to go to a commercial.
Well, which is it? Is Kennedy a threat and a spoiler or just irrelevant.”
Democrats can’t have it both ways now.
No matter how many times they get to call Trump and Kennedy “weird” – there are independent voters out there with an anti-government, anti-political party, anti-vaccine view that will end up backing Trump now.
Kennedy earlier in the campaign had polled in the double digits but recently his slide – amid Joe Biden’s withdrawal and a series of reports about dead animals and brain worms – has made him less relevant.
But his Trump endorsement is still a blow to Democrats, even if they insist it won’t impact the race.
Kennedy’s endorsement could be a factor in several battleground states like Arizona and Pennsylvania, where he is asking to have his name taken off the ballot.
Even if he swings one percent of the vote in those states, it could end up electing Trump in a nail biter of an election.
Kennedy, from the nation’s most prominent Democratic family, said he is taking his name off the ballot in purple states because he doesn’t want to be a “spoiler.”
His blasts at Democrats could resonate with some voters who see the party as oppressing Trump and himself.
“The DNC waged continual legal warfare against both President Trump and myself,” he said. “Each time that our volunteers turned in those towering boxes of signatures needed to get on the ballot, the DNC dragged us into court, state after state, attempting to erase their work and disappear with the will of the voters who signed those petitions. It deployed DNC aligned judges to throw me and other candidates off the ballot, and to throw President Trump in jail.”
His endorsement at least diminished some of the glow Kamala Harris got from her coronation at the DNC.
Both parties will now be closely watching the polls to gauge the impact of Kennedy’s move. Even if it’s minor, any tiny shift in a race this close could prove decisive.