Former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not going to appear on the ballot in North Carolina and Michigan, appeals courts ruled in two separate decisions on Friday.
Electoral authorities within the two swing states had previously decided that Kennedy's name would remain on their ballots and rejected his request to withdraw from the race.
Friday's decisions are excellent news for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. In North Carolina and Michigan, Trump is doing higher in a two-way race against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris than in a race with six candidates, in keeping with poll averages from RealClearSurvey.
When Kennedy abandoned his hopeless campaign on August 23 and pledged his support to Trump, he announced that he planned to remove his name from the ballot in ten swing states, where Trump could have benefited from the incontrovertible fact that the election campaign would shrink to a head-to-head duel with Harris.
But Kennedy's plan was easier said than done. In three swing states – North Carolina, Michigan and Wisconsin – the election authorities rejected Kennedy's request to be excluded from the election.
North Carolina State Election Commission on August 29 voted against The We The People Party, which nominated Kennedy within the state, decided that it will be “impractical to reprint ballots that had already been printed and thus meet the state's statutory deadline for the start of mail-in voting.”
In North Carolina, absentee ballots were scheduled to be mailed starting Friday, but that process was halted following the appeals court's decision granting Kennedy's request.
In a memo to North Carolina's 100 county election officials, state election commission general counsel Paul Cox instructed the officials to not mail out ballots but to maintain only those that they had already printed with Kennedy's name.
He wrote that the board has not yet decided whether to appeal the ruling.
“The court also ordered that the electoral list of the We The People party (including Kennedy and [his running mate, Nicole] Shanahan),” Cox wrote. “This will obviously be a significant undertaking for everybody. Our attorneys are reviewing the order and determining learn how to proceed. No decision has been made as as to if this ruling will probably be appealed.”
Trump welcomed the North Carolina Court of Appeals' decision in a speech to the Fraternal Order of Police in Charlotte on Friday afternoon.
“That sounds like a bad thing for [Kennedy]. It's not. It's actually a great thing,” he said. “He's an incredible team player and he didn't want anyone voting for his name because, as you know, he fully supports us. He's on our side.”
“She [will] “Vote for me now. All the Bobby people will vote for me,” Trump said.
However, polls show that voters who want to support a third-party candidate in North Carolina are not all voting for Trump when the race narrows to two candidates. While Republicans' chances improve in a head-to-head comparison, Harris's share of the vote also increases.
According to RealClearPolling, Trump and Harris are tied at 46.3% in a six-candidate race in the state. In a head-to-head comparison, Trump is slightly ahead of Harris at 47.9% to 47.2%.
In Michigan, Kennedy’s original application was denied due to state law, which, according to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Candidates from smaller parties cannot resign from the presidential race.
Kennedy filed a lawsuit against Benson over the decision, but a judge ruled Tuesday that his name would remain on the ballot.
Court of Appeal on Friday Decision overturns this ruling and grants Kennedy's request to be disqualified from the election.
Following Friday's rulings, Wisconsin is the one state that also opposes Kennedy's withdrawal efforts.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission voted 5-1 on August 27 to maintain Kennedy's name on the ballot. Kennedy filed a lawsuit difficult the choice on Tuesday.
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