Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces the future of his campaign in Phoenix, Arizona, USA on August 23, 2024.
Thomas Machovich | Reuters
former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will appear on the Michigan ballot Novembernational Supreme Court Monday’s ruling could boost the Democratic nominee’s national candidacy Kamala Harris more than the republican nominee Donald Trump.
The Supreme Court on Friday overturned a state appeals court ruling that Kennedy deleted Removed from the state’s ballot against the wishes of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
Monday’s majority ruling from the high court has not yet been signed. But the text of the order suggested that five of the seven justices hearing the case voted to keep Kennedy’s name on the ballot.
Regardless of the number of candidates, Vice President Harris leads former President Trump in the Michigan poll average. But in a head-to-head showdown, her advantage over Trump is shrinking.
Michigan has 15 votes in the Electoral College (the entity that selects the winner of U.S. presidential elections), the second-highest vote count of any swing state after Pennsylvania.
When Kennedy suspend his campaign On August 23, he pledged his support for Trump and said he planned to remove his name from the ballot in swing states, including Michigan, in an effort to benefit Trump.
Kennedy, who was nominated by the Michigan Natural Law Party, sued Secretary of State Benson after he refused a request to remove his name.
Benson cited in her decision Michigan Lawwhich stipulates that candidates from minor parties who accept nominations cannot withdraw from the election.
The Michigan Supreme Court majority wrote in Monday’s ruling that Kennedy “has neither pointed to any legal source that provides for and defines the obligation to withdraw a candidate’s name from the ballot, nor has he shown a clear legal basis for his fulfillment of this particular obligation.” right”. responsibility. “
“Accordingly, (Kennedy) has not shown a right to such extraordinary relief,” the court majority said in its ruling.
The two judges who dissented from the ruling, Brian Zahra and David Viviano, wrote that by keeping Kennedy on Michigan’s ballot, “the secretary of state improperly and unnecessarily denied voters the right to vote after their election.” Be willing to choose between actual candidates for office.
The dissident’s last words underscored the importance of the majority ruling to the outcome of the presidential race.
“We can only hope that the Secretary of State’s misguided actions – now approved by this court – will have no repercussions for the country,” they wrote.
Wisconsin North Carolina also rejected Kennedy’s request to remove his name from the state’s ballot.
Like Michigan, Kennedy sued officials in two other states in an attempt to have his name removed from the ballot.
N.C. Court of Appeals Friday Stand with Kennedyordering state election officials not to mail out ballots bearing his name as they planned to do on the same day.
Paul Cox, general counsel for the N.C. State Board of Elections, wrote in a memo to county elections directors on Friday that “a decision has not yet been made on whether to appeal this ruling.”
A judge has yet to rule on Kennedy’s lawsuit in Wisconsin.
In Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin, Harris’s polling lead over Trump has either shrunk or fallen behind Trump in head-to-head matches rather than against six candidates, according to RealClearPolling.
Kennedy successfully pulled his name from the ballot in four other battleground states: Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia.
But polls show that in Georgia and Nevada, two-way races could be Increase Harris’ chances ——Not Trump’s.
