Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called on President Joe Biden on Wednesday to take a “no-spoiler pledge” in mid-October, in which both candidates would agree to fund a 50-state poll and the weakest candidate in a head-to-head matchup against former President Donald Trump vows to drop out of the race ahead of the election.
“Ultimately, I think what we all want in this election is that Americans not have to feel like they have to vote out of fear, that they feel they can vote out of hope,” Kennedy said, speaking to a crowd in New York City. “That is only going to happen if there is a two-way race between me and President Trump or me and President Biden.”
In addition to the poll of 30,000 likely voters, Kennedy’s pledge would also require him and Biden to agree that “whomever performs weakest against President Trump in a two-man contest will drop out of the presidential race.”
The push for the pledge comes after Kennedy’s campaign made a lengthy argument that Biden is spoiling the independent candidate’s chances against Trump.
“Every poll that has posed this question — a head-to-head between President Biden and President Trump and a head-to-head race between me and President Trump has said the same thing: I perform much much better against President Trump than President Biden does,” Kennedy said.
Amaryllis Kennedy, Robert Kennedy’s campaign manager, compared internal polling to recent national polls, trying to make the case that her father-in-law would perform much better against Trump.
Kennedy initially ran as a Democrat before deciding to run as an independent. In March, he announced Nicole Shanahan, a California-based attorney and entrepreneur, as his running mate in his bid for the White House.
The independent candidate’s campaign has been pushing to get on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in time for the general election, but it has been a bruising state-by-state battle for ballot access. Campaign officials said Kennedy had collected enough signatures for access in New Hampshire, Nevada, Hawaii, North Carolina, Idaho, Nebraska, and Iowa. However, he is only officially on the ballot in Utah and Michigan.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
A recent Florida Atlantic University and Mainstreet Research poll showed Biden leading Trump by 1 percentage point. However, when RFK was added to the ballot, Biden’s lead over Trump grew to 5 points.
Trump recently has been attacking RFK in a series of posts on his Truth Social account, calling him “far more LIBERAL” than any of the Democratic candidates — including Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West.