The growing possibility that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could drop out and endorse former President Trump is injecting further chaos into an already unpredictable moment in the election.
Kennedy’s allies emphasize that nothing is final yet, and members of his team are in disagreement over how to move forward. But the two campaigns have been negotiating this week, The Hill has learned, with one scenario having Kennedy drop out as early as Friday and back the former president.
The prospect of such a move is already causing speculation about what it means for Vice President Harris, with some observers suggesting it could seriously impact her odds against Trump.
“It’s a very big deal, because we’re talking about an election that will be decided by inches on the electoral map,” GOP strategist Ford O’Connell said.
Meanwhile, there are still potential hurdles for the Kennedy and Trump campaigns as they weigh a potential deal. One source close to Kennedy, who has been briefed on the deliberations, said the third-party candidate’s stipulations could pose a problem for Trump’s team.
“Bobby wants to bring people with him onto the Trump campaign, and this might be a deal-breaker,” the source said.
Kennedy, 70, is also getting considerable pushback from the closest and most important member of his inner circle — his wife, actor Cheryl Hines — who “really does not want him” to back Trump, the source said.
“He’s contending with that,” the source added.
Running a third-party insurgent campaign against considerable headwinds has been difficult from the start for Kennedy, a former Democrat. But as his chances of securing the White House went from unlikely to practically nonexistent, he has been warming to the idea of dropping his bid, sources close to him said.
Tempted by a potential role in a second Trump administration, the environmental lawyer now sees advantages to joining the former president’s effort to defeat Harris and reclaim the Oval Office. And he’s setting the stage by sharing his favorite parts about Trump while he runs his own campaign.
Trump has returned the favor. The Republican nominee has heaped more praise this week on Kennedy, whose candidacy threatens to take votes away from the former president in critical swing states. Trump said Thursday he would be “honored” if Kennedy endorsed him, the latest in a string of compliments he has offered his rival.
The mutual interest, which has been expressed now in public and private, has been building as both candidates prepare to give speeches Friday in Arizona. Trump’s stop is expected to offer voters more standard campaign fare, while the chatter around what Kennedy will say has gone in several directions.
In an announcement, his campaign said Kennedy will address “the present historical moment and his path forward.”
But his own circle is facing an existential crisis over how to handle the event. A second source directly familiar with the negotiations told The Hill there’s a massive debate between different factions of his team over what is the best outcome for Kennedy.
One group believes he should formally end his campaign during the speech and give Trump his full-throated support. Their preferred scenario would be to set up Kennedy for a post within Trump’s possible administration, where he can help bring some of his outsider policy ideas into fruition.
The other camp wants Kennedy to push for specific demands before he lends his backing to Trump. Top on the list is for Trump to give assurances that he will help protect the ballot access infrastructure that Kennedy’s team has built up through a complicated process that has faced pressure from donors.
“It’s literally a $15 million asset they’re negotiating over,” the second source with knowledge of the talks said, speaking without attribution to discuss internal deliberations.
“Somehow you can negotiate to keep Bobby on the ballot in the hardest-won states,” the source added, naming Arizona, Pennsylvania and New York as a handful of places where maintaining his ballot line is particularly crucial.
The second source, who believes Kennedy should pursue that strategy, views the former president somewhat cynically. He believes Trump wants Kennedy’s voter base but is not necessarily inclined to help the candidate himself, despite his recent flattery. He would have to make a formal promise that he would help use his resources to defend against any efforts to kick him off the ballot, including enlisting the Republican National Committee to countersue Democrats’ lawsuits in some cases.
“If Kennedy has made the right deal, that he gets everything he wants, he’ll back Trump,” the source added. “If not, he’ll walk away.”
Kennedy has appeared to be reaching out on both sides of the aisle as he falls in polls to single-digits. He reportedly tried to get a meeting with Harris about a Cabinet position, and chatted with Trump about it too, though his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, shrugged off any traction with Harris in a recent interview, calling a Harris-Walz presidency a “risk” of staying in.
Democrats initially saw Kennedy as a bigger threat to them than to Republicans. But this spring, polls started to suggest Kennedy could hamper both Biden and Trump, and some Republican strategists suggested concerns were building in the former president’s orbit.
Now, after Biden’s historic withdrawal, polls are flashing warning signs for Trump. Harris has a nearly 3-point lead over Trump in a head-to-head match-up, according to the latest averages from Decision Desk HQ, with 49.3 percent support to Trump’s 46.7 percent. In a three-way contest including Kennedy, Harris drops just 1 point, to 48 percent, while Trump falls almost 3 points, to 44 percent — with Kennedy pulling in 3 percent.
“The polling has sort of shown that he’s been pulling from both candidates, and at different times he’s pulled from one more than the other,” Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak said. “I think that does raise some questions about what, really, the net impact of all this is really going to be.”
“Anytime a candidate drops out and endorses you, it’s going to bring a pretty decent percentage of their supporters in your direction,” he said.
Kennedy’s potential exit and endorsement could be important for Trump in decisive states. The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election manual, found that 45 percent of Kennedy voters in swing states say they’d go for the Republican in a Trump-Harris head-to-head match-up, while just 26 percent said they’d support Harris.
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The timing will also be key. If Kennedy does go through with a campaign suspension Friday, the announcement will come a day after the Democratic National Convention wrapped up in Chicago.
Democratic strategist Douglas Wilson, like others in his party, wasn’t as convinced that Kennedy’s support would significantly tip the scales when Harris is marginally ahead. It might make the race “tighter,” but he argued Democrats could make up for it with a stronger turnout plan for Election Day.
“It may give Trump an extra 2 percent, 3 percent in some states, but if we on the Democratic side can get our voters out and get them out in high numbers, we can block that,” Wilson said.