Kennedy to lay out ‘path forward’ for struggling campaign
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s troubled presidential campaign said Wednesday that it would address its “path forward” at an event this week, even as the candidate himself was in a Long Island court fending off an attempt backed by the Democratic Party to block him from New York’s ballot for a second time.
The event will be held in Phoenix on Friday, the same day that former President Donald Trump is expected to campaign in nearby Glendale, Arizona. On Tuesday, Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, said that the ticket was considering endorsing Trump; hours later, Trump said he would welcome it.
Kennedy, returning to court in Mineola, New York, after a lunch break, did not respond to questions about whether he would drop out of the race.
Kennedy began running for president last year as a Democrat, challenging President Joe Biden. He later embarked instead on an independent campaign that unnerved both major parties, which feared he would siphon critical support from their candidates.
In recent weeks, as his campaign’s money ran low, Kennedy’s support in national polls, once in the low double digits, plunged to about 5%. It was nowhere near sufficient to have a shot at victory, but still enough to potentially affect the results of the election, depending on his numbers in key swing states.
While the Democratic Party had dedicated substantial resources to contesting his candidacy, including legal challenges to his ballot access effort, recent polls suggested that Kennedy was drawing votes primarily from Trump and that his presence in the race helped Vice President Kamala Harris.
Kennedy spent much of his career working as an environmental lawyer, but became known in recent years for his opposition to vaccines and for his promotion of conspiracy theories and right-wing misinformation. Many members of the Kennedy family condemned his candidacy and took to the campaign trail earlier this year to support Biden’s reelection.
Kennedy has been struggling to compete nationally amid court cases and questions about his campaign’s practices.
His place on the Pennsylvania ballot is imperiled, following a challenge from Democratic activists. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the signatures his campaign had submitted in Arizona may have been collected in a prohibited manner. As of Monday, he was on the ballot in only 19 states, including the battlegrounds of Michigan and North Carolina.
And while he has already been blocked from New York’s ballot once after a judge found that he had falsified his residency, his opponents are pressing a similar suit against his campaign on the grounds that he gathered signatures to qualify him for the election under false pretenses.
On Wednesday, Kennedy sat stewing in the Mineola courtroom, alternating between twirling his glasses and taking notes as lawyers grilled witnesses in the lawsuit, which was filed by two voters supported by the Democratic National Committee.
The plaintiffs, Elaine Portuondo Smith and Andrena Y. Wyatt, have accused his campaign of employing subcontractors who deceived citizens. The Times reported in May that paid signature gatherers had been folding over the tops of petitions to conceal the names of Kennedy and Shanahan, and that some had claimed they were gathering signatures for Democrats and generic thirdparty candidates.