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Robert Kennedy meets with the media for his big announcement today — but his court filings stepped on his surprise. The Associated Press took a close look at his campaign’s submission in Pennsylvania rather than in Arizona to discover what the RFK’s plan for the election will be.
And it’s exactly what we thought:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign said in a Pennsylvania court filing Friday that he’s endorsing Donald Trump for president.
The campaign also requested that he be removed from the Pennsylvania ballot, though it wasn’t immediately clear that he was officially dropping out of the race. It came a day after he sought to be removed from Arizona’s ballot. He is running as an independent.
That takes some of the suspense out of the announcement in Phoenix, which still hasn’t started despite its 2 ET schedule. While we’re waiting to watch that presser, let’s take a look at how this could impact the race. Newsweek reports that there is some level of excitement for Trump among RFK supporters already:
A number of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. supporters recently said on social media they will vote for Donald Trump if the independent presidential candidate drops out of the 2024 election and endorses the Republican nominee as a new poll found that if Kennedy Jr. leaves the race more of his supporters would lean towards backing the former president than Vice President Kamala Harris. .
A number of self-described Kennedy Jr. supporters on X, formerly Twitter, said they are either open to switching their votes to Trump should the environmental campaigner and vaccine sceptic leave the contest, or had already decided to do so.
Click over to read the anecdotal submissions, but Newsweek has some polling data that also supports the theory that RFK’s endorsement could lift Trump:
Meanwhile, a survey of 1,867 likely U.S. voters conducted by Outward Intelligence between August 18 and 22 and published on Thursday found that if Kennedy Jr. does drop out of the race, 59 percent of his voters would lean towards backing Trump against 41 percent for Harris.
