Tim Ryan shrugs off threat of RFK Jr. endorsing Trump

CHICAGO — Former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) on Wednesday shrugged off the potential threat of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropping out of the race and backing former President Trump.

Ryan, asked about concerns that such a move could affect the presidential election in the battleground states, answered, “I don’t think it’ll have much effect at all.”

“I mean, if you’re with Robert Kennedy, you’re wantin’ change, and if you’re wantin’ change, I don’t know if you’re gonna go with Donald Trump,” he added, as his party convened at the United Center for the third night of the Democratic National Convention.

Speculation is swirling over Kennedy’s next move, with multiple reports suggesting he will drop out and endorse Trump. Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, floated the idea as a possibility during a recent podcast interview.

The Hill previously reported that Kennedy allies were convening on the phone Wednesday to discuss the campaign’s next steps.

Kennedy has failed to make headway in his presidential campaign. An aggregate of national surveys compiled by the Decision Desk HQ showed Vice President Harris at 48 percent, Trump at 44 percent and Kennedy at 3 percent.

Experts and even the Harris-Walz campaign also suggested a potential exit from Kennedy won’t shake up the race. 

“First of all, I will say at the top, we are very confident that the vice president’s going to win whether she is running against one candidate or multiple candidates,” Harris campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillion told Politico’s Eugene Daniels at the CNN-Politico grill on Wednesday. 

“And at the same time I think when you look at RFK and what’s happened over the last several months, the more the American people hear from him, the more we see that they don’t like him that much.”