Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his longshot presidential campaign last week, but New Jerseyans will still likely see the controversial outcast of one of America’s most prominent political families on their ballot in November.
Kennedy announced he would work to withdraw his name from swing-state ballots to avoid siphoning votes from former President Donald Trump, whom Kennedy endorsed. In New Jersey, a solid-blue state, the Secretary of State’s office told the Globe on Tuesday that Kennedy’s team had not filed a request to withdraw from the ballot.
“I want everyone to know that I am only suspending my campaign, not terminating it,” Kennedy said in the speech suspending his campaign. “My name will still be on the ballot in most states. If you live in a blue state, you can vote for me without harming or helping President Trump or Vice President Harris.”
It was a long fight to get Kennedy onto the New Jersey ballot in the first place. Election attorney Scott Salmon challenged Kennedy’s spot on the ballot under the Garden State’s sore-loser law because Kennedy initially campaigned as a Democrat before launching an independent campaign last October. The law bars candidates who unsuccessfully run a primary campaign from then running as an independent in the general election, and Salmon argued that Kennedy’s initial attempt as a Democrat constituted a failure under the sore-loser law.
But an administrative law judge disagreed and allowed Kennedy to stay on the ballot, a decision that Secretary of State Tahesha Way affirmed early this month.
Salmon says he feels a “bit vindicated” now that Kennedy has dropped from the race,
“This is quite literally exactly the kind of machinations that the sore-loser law was designed to prevent against,” Salmon told the Globe.
Kennedy has requested to withdraw from ballots in Arizona, Michigan, Florida, and Ohio, though it’s unclear how many states he is still able to withdraw from.
“The whole thing is just a big thing of gamesmanship, and he’s staying on where he thinks it’s going to help, and getting off where he thinks going to hurt,” Salmon said. “That’s what we were trying to prevent here.”