(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Despite suspending his campaign for president last week, former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will remain on the ballot in the pivotal swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin, Axios reported.
Democrats stripped RFK of his Secret Service but are refusing to allow his name to be taken off the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin
This is what they do
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 27, 2024
Last week, Kennedy said that he would withdraw from key swing states and throw his support behind former President Donald Trump in order to try to defeat the Democrats.
When he suspended his campaign, Kennedy said that his name remaining on the ballot in battleground states “would most likely hand the election to the Democrats, with whom I disagree on most existential issues.”
But now, leftist state officials who were previously eager to disavow the maverick political scion and longtime Democrat are refusing to comply, presumably hoping to hurt Trump’s chances of breaching the Rust Belt’s blue wall, as he did in his successful 2016 campaign.
In Michigan, George Soros-backed Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson rationalized the move on the grounds that candidates not from major parties cannot withdraw, and that Kennedy was running as a member of the Natural Law Party.
“Minor party candidates cannot withdraw, so his name will remain on the ballot in the November election,” Cheri Hardmon, Benson’s senior press secretary, said in a statement.
In Wisconsin, a lone Republican on the state elections commission voted to get Kennedy off the ballot. But commissioner Robert Spindell Jr. was overruled in a 5-1 vote by two other Republicans and three Democrats—one of whom accused the Trump campaign of orchestrating a bad faith political ploy.
“We know Trump and Kennedy are playing games,” Democratic commissioner Mark Thomsen said, according to the Associated Press. “Whatever games they’re playing, they have to play them with Kennedy on the ballot.”
The board also voted to approve five other third-party candidates, including Green Party nominee Jill Stein, who helped draw votes from Hillary Clinton in 2016. Democrats had sued to block her from the ballot, as they had with Kennedy prior to his decision to withdraw.
Independent candidate Cornel West—who could potentially put a huge dent in Democrats’ black and Muslim support in Milwaukee and other major urban centers—will also appear on the Wisconsin ballot.
Nonetheless, in a post on X, conservative pundit George Behizy pointed out the fundamental hypocrisy of Democrats for seeking to remove Kennedy from ballots in deep blue states while fighting to retain it in swing states.
“This only conclusion here is that Democrat officials in every state were conspiring to steal the 2024 election,” he wrote.
BREAKING: Following Michigan's example, the Wisconsin Elections Commission just voted 5-1 to keep RFK Jr's name on the ballot against his will
Out of nowhere, Democrats have frozen all efforts to remove RFK Jr's name from the ballot. However, they still want him removed from the… pic.twitter.com/InoZ6LqKqX
— George (@BehizyTweets) August 27, 2024
