By remaining in the race, Kennedy is hurting the Republican nominee’s chances of winning, his vice presidential candidate admitted
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is weighing whether to end his third-party presidential campaign and endorse Donald Trump, his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, said on Tuesday.
With Kennedy struggling to get his name on the ballot in several key states and his campaign hemorrhaging money, Shanahan told the Impact Theory podcast on Tuesday that the former Democrat had come to a crossroads.
“There’s two options that we’re looking at and one is staying in, forming that new party, but we run the risk of a Kamala Harris and [Tim] Walz presidency because we draw votes from Trump,” she said.
“Or we walk away, right now, and join forces with Donald Trump…and we explain to our base why we’re making this decision,” she continued, adding that the choice is “not easy.”
Kennedy announced last October that he would run for the presidency as an independent candidate, ending his bid to challenge President Joe Biden in the Democratic Party’s primary elections.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden atop the Democratic ticket last month, usually performs narrowly better against Trump in polls that include Kennedy, suggesting that Kennedy’s continued campaign poses more of a threat to the Republican. A composite of multiple polls compiled by RealClearPolitics currently shows Harris leading Trump by 46.4% to 44.9%, with Kennedy pulling in 4.5% of the vote and the Green party’s Jill Stein taking 1%.
In a social media post on Tuesday, Kennedy insisted that he is “willing to talk with leaders of any political party to further the goals I have served for 40 years in my career and in this campaign.”
These goals, he said, include “reversing the chronic disease epidemic, ending the war machine, cleaning corporate influence out of government and toxic pollution out of the environment, protecting freedom of speech, and ending politicization of enforcement agencies.”
Kennedy’s free speech advocacy and opposition to foreign wars are positions shared by Trump, while the former president has also complained at length about Biden’s apparent “weaponization” of the justice system against him. While Kennedy has spoken to Trump and Harris about potential endorsements, Shanahan said on Tuesday that she prefers Trump’s vision for the US.
“If we are splitting hairs, I would say that I trust the future of this county more under the leadership of Trump and the [Peter] Thiels and the J.D. Vances than I do right now under Harris and the Reid Hoffmans,” she said, referencing the Republican and Democratic parties’ most prominent Silicon Valley donors.
In a phone call leaked by Kennedy’s son last month, Trump encouraged the former Democrat to endorse his campaign, telling him “it would be so good for you.”
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