By Ismail Shakil and Stephanie Kelly
(Reuters) -Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abanonded his campaign on Friday and endorsed Republican Donald Trump, ending a presidential bid that he began as a Democrat trading on one of the most famous names in American politics.
His campaign indicated that he feared staying in the race would siphon support from former President Trump, who is locked in a tight contest with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
Kennedy said he met with Trump and his aides several times and learned they agreed on issues like border security, free speech and ending wars.
“There are still many issues and approaches on which we continue to have very serious differences. But we are aligned on other key issues,” he said at a news conference.
Kennedy said he would remove his name from the ballot in 10 battleground states likely to determine the outcome of the election but would remain as a candidate in other states.
An environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist and son and nephew of two titans of Democratic politics who were assassinated during the turbulent 1960s, Kennedy entered the race in April 2023 as a challenger to President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.
With voters at the time turned off by both the aging Biden and the legally embattled Trump, interest in Kennedy soared. He shifted his plans and decided to run as an independent, and a November 2023 Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Kennedy drawing the support of 20% of Americans in a three-way race with Biden and Trump.
He ran a high-profile advertisement during the February 2024 Super Bowl that invoked his father, U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and uncle, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, and drew outrage from much of his high-profile family.
His sister Kerry Kennedy said on Friday that his decision to endorse Trump betrayed the family’s values. “It is a sad ending to a sad story,” she said on social media.
For a time, both the Biden and Trump campaigns showed signs they were worried that Kennedy could draw enough support to change the election outcome. His name is on the ballot in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota and North Carolina — half of the competitive swing states expected to determine the election’s outcome.
But as the race changed quickly in the last two months — with Trump surviving an assassination attempt and the 81-year-old Biden bowing to pressure from his own party and passing the campaign torch to Harris — voter interest in Kennedy, 70, waned.
An Ipsos poll early this month showed his national support had fallen to 4%, a tiny number, but one that could still be meaningful in a tight race such as the current Trump-Harris matchup.
Democrats shrugged off his announcement.
“Donald Trump isn’t earning an endorsement that’s going to help build support, he’s inheriting the baggage of a failed fringe candidate. Good riddance,” Democratic National Committee senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill said in a statement.
In exchange for endorsing Trump, Kennedy was hoping for a job in a potential Trump administration, a super PAC supporting Kennedy told Reuters on Wednesday. He also wanted Trump to allow his political movement to continue in some fashion, which could include staying on the ballot in some states.
Kennedy painted himself as a political outsider. He told Reuters in an interview in March that if elected president he would not restrict abortion, would repeal many provisions of Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act and would seek to close down the southern border to immigrants entering the U.S. illegally. He also offered staunch support for Israel.
Trump mega-donor Timothy Mellon, an 82-year-old banking heir, has given millions of dollars this election cycle in support of Kennedy, and given $75 million in support of Trump, according to Federal Election Commission filings through July 31.
Shanahan has donated over $15 million to the Kennedy campaign, FEC filings showed.
In a video of a phone call posted online last month, Trump suggested to Kennedy that the independent candidate could do something to support the Trump campaign. Soon after, both candidates spoke a day apart from each other at a bitcoin conference in Nashville, trying to court votes.
BEAR, BRAIN WORMS
Kennedy said this month in a video posted online that he dumped a dead bear in New York City’s Central Park a decade ago and staged it to look like a bike had hit it. He proclaimed he had “so many skeletons in my closet” after a former family babysitter accused him of sexual assault. He denied that a picture of him posing with the barbecued carcass of a large animal belonged to a canine.
And then there was the brain worm. Kennedy had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has since fully recovered, a fact unearthed by the New York Times and confirmed by the campaign.
Those stories prompted ridicule from late-night talk show hosts.
The Democratic Party especially has been ruthless in their opposition to Kennedy’s candidacy including waging legal challenges against his ballot access, as concern grew that Kennedy could hurt the party’s chances in November.
(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly; Editing by Heather Timmons, Scott Malone, Andy Sullivan and Jonathan Oatis)
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