Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces drastic shift in his swing state strategy ahead of the Trump and Harris debate
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told his supporters to support Trump regardless of where they live
- He had originally told his supporters to only vote for Trump in the swing states
- READ MORE: LIVE report of debate day
Now Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is calling on his supporters to vote for former President Donald Trump, wherever they live.
When Kennedy partially withdrew from the presidential race last month, he asked his supporters to support Trump in key swing states but still vote for him if they lived in a state with strong Republican or Democratic control.
On Tuesday, ahead of Trump’s first meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris, the now-former independent presidential candidate changed his mind.
“In short, no matter what state you live in, VOTE TRUMP,” Kennedy advised in a message on X. “A Trump win is a Kennedy win.”
In a linked video, he explained that voting for Trump was “the only way we can get me and everything I stand for into Washington, DC, and fulfill the mission that motivated my campaign.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday that his supporters should vote for former President Donald Trump regardless of where they live. He originally asked his supporters to vote for Trump only if they lived in swing states
Kennedy made the announcement ahead of former President Donald Trump (L) and Vice President Kamala Harris’ first meeting on the debate stage in Philadelphia. Kennedy is expected to be one of Trump’s surrogates in the spin room Tuesday
He added that a contested election would further divide the country and that Trump therefore needed to win by a “landslide,” both in terms of the popular vote and the Electoral College.
Trump lost the census in both 2016 and 2020, but won the Electoral College count in 2016, earning him his only term in office.
Kennedy began his campaign for the presidency in April 2023 as a Democrat, seeking to challenge President Joe Biden.
The move alienated members of his famous political family.
His father was the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated while running for president in 1968. His uncle was the late President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963.
The prominent anti-vaxxer further angered his family when he announced last October that he would instead run as an independent candidate, and spent the next few months trying to get his name on ballots across the US.
Democrats feared that he could disrupt the election and that Trump would therefore be the deciding factor.
And the day after the Democratic National Convention, Kennedy traveled to Arizona, where he supported Trump.
“I want everyone to know that I’m not ending my campaign, I’m just suspending it and not stopping it,” Kennedy said. “My name remains on the ballot in most states.”
He said he would remove his name from the ballot in ten key swing states and encouraged his supporters living in those states to support the Republican candidate.
“I was surprised to find that we are on the same page on many important issues,” Kennedy said of Trump.
“In those meetings he suggested that we join forces as a united party,” the independent continued. “We talked about Abraham Lincoln’s Team of Rivals.”
‘That arrangement would allow us to disagree publicly and privately, and, if necessary, to disagree vigorously on issues on which we disagree, while at the same time working together on the existential issues on which we agree.’
Kennedy is one of several surrogates who will be in Philadelphia on Tuesday night to bolster Trump’s case in the spin room.
He’s joined by former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a once-progressive Democrat who’s now a full-fledged MAGA and even helping the ex-president prepare for the debate.
At the same time, Democrats have strong ties with Kennedy family members.
On Friday, his cousin, JFK’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, visited President Joe Biden at the White House and was filmed as Biden flew to Michigan aboard Marine One.