MILWAUKEE- He may not appear on ballots in Wisconsin and isn’t even running for President anymore, but Robert F Kennedy Jr. may have an outsized impact on the race for the White House.
“This is significant,” says TMJ4 chief political reporter Charles Benson tells WTMJ following the announcement Friday that Robert Kennedy is dropping out of the race for President and endorsing Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump. “If you take 1% (of the overall vote in Wisconsin) that’s 30,000 & if Robert F Kennedy provides that kind of influence on that race for Donald Trump either by adding that number or 30,0000 fewer people don’t vote, that’s big in an election that could be decided by 25 or 30,000 votes.”
Kennedy on Friday said he was suspending his campaign, but isn’t dropping out of the race entirely. His campaign says the plan is to remove his name from the ballot in states where his inclusion would hurt Trump, but would remain on the ballot in states in which it would help the former President.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission is set to meet on Tuesday and decide whether or not it has the authority to remove Kennedy from the ballot. The WEC says it doesn’t have  a process to take back a ballot access filing, which would make it difficult to get Kennedy’s name removed come November.
“If his name is still on the ballot, that could have an impact,” Benson said. “I think there’s still some defining moments come November 5th if he’s still on the ballot not only here but in other states.”
In 2020 Joe Biden defeated Trump by roughly 1%, and in 2016 Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by roughly the same margin. Green Party candidate Jill Stein was the leading 3rd party vote-getter in 2016 with roughly 31,000 votes.
“You can’t say that all of those votes that went to Jill Stein would have gone to Hillary Clinton,” Benson tells Wisconsin’s Afternoon News. “There are a lot of elements that were at play in 2016 but when you’re talking about margins that are at, or around, 1%, these things matter.”
