RFK Jr. expected to drop out of race by end of week, plans to endorse Trump: Sources
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(WASHINGTON) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning to drop out of the presidential race by the end of this week, sources familiar with the decision tell ABC News.
Sources tell ABC News that Kennedy plans to endorse Donald Trump — but when asked directly by ABC News if he will be endorsing the former president, Kennedy said, “I will not confirm or deny that.”
“We are not talking about any of that,” he said.
Sources cautioned the decision is not yet finalized and could still change, with one source adding that Kennedy’s hope is, in part, to finalize things quickly in order to try to blunt momentum from the Democratic National Convention.
One possible scenario being discussed is for Kennedy to appear on stage with Trump at an event in Phoenix on Friday, though the sources cautioned that Kennedy’s thinking could always change and sources close to Trump say no plan for Friday is finalized.
Kennedy’s campaign manager, Amaryllis Fox, emailed senior staff on Wednesday morning thanking them for their hard work — but indicated a decision on the way forward had not been made, a source familiar with the email told ABC News.
“There are a couple potential paths forward, not only two, and I can bear witness to the care, examination that Bobby has invested in the consideration of each,” Fox wrote, according to the source.
A spokesperson for Kennedy posted on X that Kennedy will “address the nation” live on Friday to discuss his “path forward,” but offered no specifics.
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kennedy told ABC News regarding the Democratic convention and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, “I think it was a coronation, it’s not democracy. Nobody voted. Who chose Kamala It wasn’t voters.”
He also complained about the way his campaign has been treated.
“She went in four weeks from being the worst liability for the Democratic Party to the second coming of Christ without giving one interview, without showing up for a debate, without a single policy that anyone thinks isn’t ridiculous,” he said. “It’s not democracy.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s campaign is testing head-to-head matchups of Vice President Kamala Harris against former President Donald Trump, a source familiar with the strategy told ABC News.
It’s a strategic shift that comes with increasing scrutiny on whether Biden should end his 2024 reelection campaign, as a growing number Democrats are calling on him to step aside.
The source cast the move as a response to the fact that Trump has begun to attack Harris in his public statements and speeches.
“Donald Trump shifted his stump speech. We’d be dumb not to adjust,” the source told ABC News. “We obviously pay close attention to what he is saying.”
The New York Times was first to report on the campaign’s actions.
A new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll found Biden continues to run evenly with Trump: Americans were divided 46-47% between Biden and Trump if the election were today.
But two-thirds of Americans, including a majority of Biden’s supporters, said he should step down as his party’s presumptive nominee. On the issue of age, 85% of respondents said Biden he is too old for a second term, up a few points from April.
Were Harris to replace Biden as the Democratic nominee, the poll found Harris leading Trump 49-46% among all adults and 49-47% among registered voters.
Harris recently defended Biden as she’s hit the campaign trail.
“Now, we always knew this election would be tough,” she said on Tuesday at as the campaign launched an outreach effort to Asian American voters. “And the past few days have been a reminder that running for president of the United States is never easy.”
“But the one thing we know about our President Joe Biden, is that he is a fighter, and he is the first to say, ‘when you get knocked down you get back up,'” Harris said.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Though Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced last month he was suspending his struggling independent campaign and endorsing former President Donald Trump, voters in many states are still likely to see him on their ballot this fall.
Announcing his decision in Phoenix, Arizona, Kennedy said that he would remove himself from the ballot in battleground states where he could act as a “spoiler” for Trump, but he encouraged voters in solidly Democratic or Republican states to vote for him.
Kennedy did not name the states from which he would withdraw, but ABC News has confirmed that he has successfully removed himself from several battleground state ballots.
However, in a hiccup for the campaign — and for Trump — Kennedy was unable to remove his name from the ballot in at least three states expected to be competitive: Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina.
Here’s a look at where Kennedy has been taken off from the ballot — and where he’ll still be on them.
Where has Kennedy been removed from the ballot?
As of Wednesday, ABC News had confirmed that Kennedy has successfully withdrawn his name from the ballot in at least 10 states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and South Carolina.
Many of those states are considered presidential battlegrounds, or at least contain some competitive congressional districts — such as Maine’s 2nd District, which Trump won in 2020, but is currently a seat held by Democratic Rep. Jared Golden.
Kennedy has moved quickly to scratch his name from ballots: in Arizona, his team scrambled to file withdrawal paperwork the night before he suspended his campaign. They were working to beat a crucial deadline: the Arizona secretary of state’s office was set to print ballots, which included Kennedy’s name, just hours later.
Then, in the hours after his announcement, Kennedy’s campaign successfully withdrew his name from the ballot in Texas, Pennsylvania and Ohio, ABC News confirmed.
In the days since, officials in several other states have told ABC News that Kennedy has successfully removed his name from the ballot.
In Georgia, a key battleground, the secretary of state’s office received two letters from lawyers for Kennedy asking to remove him from the ballot, according to a spokesperson.
But the office never considered Kennedy to be “on the ballot” in the first place — as an administrative judge ruled that the independent candidate did not meet the qualifications.
A spokesman for the office told ABC News, “He won’t be on the ballot.”
Officials in Nevada confirmed to ABC News last week that Kennedy is now off the ballot in the state — in that case, because of a court order received by the office.
The Nevada Independent reported that the court order is due to an agreement between Kennedy’s lawyers and the Nevada Democratic Party, which had challenged his petition to get on the ballot in Nevada, to drop the lawsuit and to mutually agree that Kennedy should not be on the ballot.
In New Hampshire, the office of the secretary of state confirmed to ABC News that Kennedy’s campaign submitted signatures to get him on the ballot the morning he suspended his campaign. But days later, a spokesperson for the office told ABC News that the Kennedy campaign “withdrew the nomination petitions required to be a certified candidate on the general election ballot.”
Where is Kennedy still on the ballot?
As of Wednesday, ABC News had confirmed that Kennedy will likely be on the ballot in about 30 states, although this could shift with any further successful withdrawals, legal challenges or decisions by elections offices ahead of state ballot certifications.
That number includes battleground states whose ballots Kennedy tried in recent days to withdraw from, such as Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission voted 5-1 on Tuesday to certify Kennedy and some other independent candidates for the ballot. The board debated over whether to remove him given his withdrawal from the race, with commissioner Ann S. Jacobs, a Democratic Party appointee on the board, arguing that Kennedy could not withdraw due to state statutes.
“It literally says, ‘if you filed nomination papers you cannot withdraw unless you’re dead.’ I mean, all of this is just vibing to try to ignore a statute. And this statute’s clear — like this isn’t even equivocal,” Jacobs said during a meeting of the commission.
A lawyer for Kennedy had submitted a letter to the Wisconsin Elections Commission requesting to withdraw him from the state’s ballot. But a spokesperson for the commission told ABC News recently that if a candidate files to get on the ballot in Wisconsin, “there is no mechanism to ‘take back’ the filing.”
ABC News has reached out to the Kennedy campaign to see if he plans to appeal the decision.
In Michigan, a judge ruled against Kennedy, who had sued Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson for ordering his name to remain on the ballot.
Nominees of minor political parties may not remove themselves from the ballot, a representative for Benson’s office told ABC News.
The Natural Law Party, a two-member political party with ballot access in Michigan, nominated Kennedy to lead its ticket in April.
And in North Carolina, election officials voted to keep Kennedy’s name on the ballot since nearly two million ballots had already been printed across the state.
Reprinting them would be costly and leave most counties without ballots until at least mid-September (under state law, absentee ballots must go out by Sept. 6 to voters who have requested them).
On Friday, Kennedy sued the North Carolina Board of Elections to get his name removed from the ballot.
In an oddity, there are also some states where Kennedy’s campaign filed to get on the ballot even after he announced suspending his campaign.
Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams wrote on X on Monday afternoon that Kennedy filed to run in Kentucky (a state that his campaign had not discussed much or at all previously) that afternoon.
“Having just completed review of his submission of signatures, we are placing him on the ballot,” Adams wrote. The Kentucky secretary of state’s website also shows his filing.
And in Oregon, Kennedy achieved a spot on the ballot three days after announcing his suspension through the We the People Party and “at this time” will be on the ballot in the state, a spokesman for the Oregon secretary of state’s office said. The Oregon secretary of state’s website also has an entry for his filing.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, an ally of Donald Trump, said the presidential race will be a close one and the former president will put in the work to win in November.
When pressed by “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl on whether or not Trump has to pivot his messaging to focus more on Vice President Kamala Harris’ policies, Cotton replied that Trump’s “campaign has known all along, and they’ve said all along that this race is going to be a close race,” though Trump himself has also predicted a wide margin of victory for himself.
“We know the race will probably come down to a few hundred thousand votes in a few states. President Trump has been campaigning hard and vigorously now for months. Obviously, that’s going to increase in its pace as we get closer to the election, and President Trump is going to draw a sharp contrast with Kamala Harris,” Cotton said.
Cotton’s remarks come as Republicans urge Trump to focus more on his messaging. While he has consistently noted voters’ frustrations on inflation and immigration, he has also thrown personal jabs that some in his party consider distractions, including saying he’s better looking than Harris.
The lack of messaging discipline comes as polling shows Harris significantly improving on President Joe Biden’s standing nationally and in key swing states. 538’s national polling average now shows Harris up by 3.6 points nationally.
Republicans are also frustrated by what they claim is a lack of policy transparency by Harris.
The vice president recently released details of her economic plan, including fighting price gouging and expanding assistance for new parents and first-time homebuyers. She has not said much else, aside from disavowing policies she proposed in 2020 like banning fracking.
“[S]he’s taking these efforts not to change her positions, but to hide her positions. Jon, the American people are totally justified to conclude that Kamala Harris is a dangerous San Francisco liberal based on what she campaigned on the last time she ran for president and what this administration has done the last four years,” Cotton said.
“If she has changed her position, she owes it to the American people to come out and say to her own words when she changed and why she changed,” he added.
Cotton also dismissed any momentum Harris could have coming out of the Democrats’ convention in Chicago, which included several Republican supporters who cast Trump as a threat to democracy.
“Well, in every election Jon, you have some members of one party endorsing the candidate of the other party. That’s a very traditional aspect of American politics,” Cotton said. “I mean, look at what just happened this week. The Democratic Party under Kamala Harris has gone so far to the left that you actually had a Kennedy endorse a Republican,” Cotton said, referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent endorsement of Trump.
