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By Aila Slisco
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The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s last-minute attempt to put his name on New York's ballot for the November presidential election.
Kennedy, who suspended his independent presidential campaign and endorsed Donald Trump last month, has been trying to remove his name from the ballot in battleground states where he could act as a "spoiler" candidate and help Vice President Kamala Harris.
However, Kennedy has urged supporters in states that most do not consider to be battlegrounds—such as New York—to continue to vote for him, due to a belief that he "could still conceivably end up in the White House in a contingent election."
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New York officials previously removed Kennedy's name because he allegedly listed an invalid address when applying to appear on the ballot. Several lower courts rejected appeals from Kennedy seeking to force his name to appear.
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Kennedy's legal team eventually appealed to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who referred the matter to the full court. In a brief order on Friday, the Court denied Kennedy's emergency appeal without explanation, effectively ending any hopes of his name being on the ballot in New York.
"We greatly appreciate and thank the justices for their quick consideration of this important issue," lawyer Richard Jaffe, who filed the Supreme Court appeal, told Newsweek in a statement. "I wouldn't be surprised if New York's success in removing efforts to remove RFK Jr. may backfire and spur even greater efforts towards a third-party movement for the next presidential election."
Jaffe continued: "The case has been efficiently and respectfully decided by the highest court in the land, but the vision and its implementation continues."
Trump is very unlikely to win in New York, with all recent polls in the state showing him trailing Harris by double digits. But Kennedy's name remaining on the ballot could hurt the former president's hopes for an improved performance in the state where he has spent most of his life.
Harris is currently polling well behind President Joe Biden's 23-point margin of victory in New York in 2020, fueling speculation from some Republicans that Trump could manage the best showing for a GOP candidate in decades this year.
Trump himself promised that he would "win New York" in November when speaking to an enthusiastic crowd of supporters in Long Island earlier this month. Long Island is considerably less blue than New York City, where the former president was born and officially resided until switching his residence to Florida in 2019.
Kennedy, the son of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, who were both Democrats, has successfully removed his name in four swing states.
Ballots in Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada and Pennsylvania will no longer have Kennedy's name, while he never qualified for the ballot in Georgia. His name is set to remain on the ballot in Michigan, Wisconsin and dozens of other states that most do not consider battlegrounds.
Five of Kennedy's siblings, all Democrats, condemned their brother for endorsing Trump in a statement released last month. They said his endorsement of the former president was "a betrayal of the values that our father and family hold most dear" and declared their support for Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz.
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