WASHINGTON: Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr suspended his presidential campaign and threw his support behind former President Donald Trump. He announced his plans in a speech in Phoenix, saying he was withdrawing his name from the ballot in battleground states. He accused the Democratic Party of “abandoning democracy” and engaging in “continued legal warfare” against him and Trump. Kennedy’s announcement was pre-empted on Friday by his own legal team, in a filing in a Pennsylvania court case challenging his ballot access in the battleground state.
Kennedy, 70, the scion of a Democratic political dynasty, ran a campaign that combined populist economic rhetoric, isolationist foreign policy leanings and government scepticism. He found a base of support among Kennedy-curious independent voters and disaffected Democrats and Republicans.