RFK Jr. to defend bid to get on Pennsylvania ballot against Democrats’ challenge

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania — HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was due in court on Tuesday to defend his bid to get on the ballot for president in the key state of Pennsylvania, where Democrats are trying to oust him in what is expected to be a close race.

Affiliated with the Democratic Party challengers say Kennedy’s candidacy documents listed a false home address — an allegation also circulating in other state courts — and there were other damning flaws, including the false names of people who allegedly testified that they had collected the signatures of thousands of voters.

Kennedy’s campaign has dismissed the legal challenge as “frivolous.”

If Kennedy were to appear on the Pennsylvania ballot, he could take away crucial support from the Republican candidate Donald Trump or Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in a state where a margin of tens of thousands of votes gave victory to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 and to Trump in 2016.

Pennsylvania’s 19 electors, which tie with Illinois for fifth place, are so important that Harris visited the state on Sunday and Trump visited both Saturday and Monday.

“They say if you win Pennsylvania, you win the whole thing,” Trump told a crowd at Mohegan Arena in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday.

National Democrats in particular have been active in their efforts to undermine the candidacy of Kennedy, a scion of one of the party’s most famous families. Trump has alternated between bashing Kennedy as a liberal and recruiting his support.

Meanwhile, Kennedy is facing challenges in several other states, including Georgiaand has appealed decision of the judge in New York last week, which denied Kennedy’s nomination bids because his listed residence was a “fake” address. Kennedy lists his address as New York, but the judge ruled in favor of the challengers, who argued that Kennedy’s actual residence was the Los Angeles home he shares with his wife, actress Cheryl Hines.

Kennedy’s campaign claims it has collected enough signatures to get on the ballot in all 50 states and is officially on the ballots in 22 states, including the battlegrounds of Michigan and North Carolina.

In Pennsylvania, the Green Party Jill Stein and Chase Oliver of the Libertarian Party filed petitions to get on the Pennsylvania presidential ballot uncontested.

There were two other lawsuits pending. A Democratic-leaning lawsuit focused on the nomination papers for Party for Socialism and Liberation presidential candidate Claudia De la Cruz, while a Republican-leaning lawsuit focused on Constitution Party presidential candidate James Clymer.

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Follow Marc Levy on https://x.com/timelywriter.