Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has announced on Friday, August 23, that he is suspending, not ending, his campaign for president and will seek to remove his name from the ballot in battleground states because he believes his presence in the race would help Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris . Harris accepted her party’s nomination and offered her policy agenda on the fourth and final night of the Democratic National Convention on Thursday.
At Trump's campaign stop Friday in Las Vegas, he sought to reclaim his vow to eliminate taxes on tips for service industry workers. It’s a promise that Trump shared in June at a Las Vegas rally that Harris later echoed when speaking to her own supporters at a rally earlier this month on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
"In our case, we mean it," Trump said. "Somebody I know just copied it. You know that’s not going to happen." The Culinary Workers Union, a political powerhouse in Nevada representing 60,000 service-industry employees at hotels and casinos, has endorsed Harris. But on Friday, Trump said, "Can we get the Culinary Union to maybe vote for Trump?" The union did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump, in Vegas, said he’d just got a "very nice" endorsement from RFK Jr. that he’ll be talking about in Arizona. "That was very nice," he said. "That’s big." Dozens of his supporters packed inside a Mexican and Italian fusion restaurant cheered.
RFK Jr. calls his decision to support Trump 'agonizing'
As Kennedy shared what he called an "agonizing" and "heart-wrenching decision to suspend my campaign and to support President Trump," it evoked another decision he had described as difficult for himself and his family – when he left the Democratic Party to run as an Independent. When he announced that move last fall, he said it was "very painful to let go of the party of my uncles, my father, my grandfather and both of my great-grandfathers."
During Friday’s announcement, he noted that joining the Trump campaign would be a "difficult sacrifice for my wife and children."
Meanwhile, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff are greeting supporters at Chicago’s Soldier Field before the vice president returns to Washington. Harris accepted her party’s presidential nomination in a speech Thursday night to close out the Democratic National Convention.
Several dozen supporters and community leaders awaited Harris’ arrival in the parking lot of Soldier Field. Some were wearing "Harris for President" T-shirts as the vice president went down the line shaking hands, greeting people and posing for photos.
In a close election campaign with both sides looking for an edge, the party with more people watching their midsummer convention would seem to have an important sign of success.
Yet historically speaking, that measurement means next to nothing. Eight times over the past 16 presidential election cycles dating back to 1960, the party with the most popular convention among television viewers won in November. Eight times they lost.
Through the first three nights of each convention this summer, the Democrats averaged 20.6 million viewers, the Nielsen company said. Republicans averaged 17 million in July. The estimate for Thursday night, highlighted by Vice President Kamala Harris’ acceptance speech , is due later Friday.