The independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will withdraw his name from the ballots of 10 battleground states, effectively ending his ambitious but fraught campaign for the White House.

“I, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, hereby withdraw as a candidate for the office of President of the United States for the 2024 general election,” read official paperwork filed with Arizona’s secretary of state and signed by Kennedy on Friday.

In an afternoon speech the same day, Kennedy stopped short of giving a full endorsement of Republican nominee Donald Trump, suggesting his supporters in solidly red or blue states still vote independent because their votes wouldn’t play spoiler in the election. 

“To throw my support for President Trump,” Kennedy said. “The causes were free speech, the war in Ukraine, and the war on our children.”

Kennedy, who spent the better part of his announcement throttling the Democratic Party for its positions on war and censorship, credited Trump’s knowledge of the conflict in Ukraine and his openness to negotiate an end to the war as the top reasons he is supporting the former president in the battleground states. 

“Our polling consistently showed that by staying on the ballot in the battleground states,” Kennedy stated. “I would likely hand the election over to the Democrats.”

Kennedy’s VP nominee, Nicole Shanahan, struck a markedly different tone in the leadup to Friday’s announcement, repeatedly suggesting the Kennedy team could withhold its endorsement if Trump refused to accept his policy decisions related to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

"The hesitation we have right now in joining forces with Trump is that he has not apologized or publicly admitted that Operation Warp Speed was his fault or a failure,” Shanahan said.

But Kennedy linked his campaign with Trump’s, claiming the Democrats had attempted to “subvert the will of the voters” by waging “continued legal warfare against both President Trump and myself.”

“Each time our volunteers turned in those towering boxes of signatures needed to get on the ballot, the DNC dragged us into court, state after state, attempting to erase their work and to subvert the will of the voters,” he said.

Kennedy lambasted his father and uncle’s party, repeatedly attacking the Democratic Party for replacing Biden with Kamala Harris atop the ticket without a fair and open primary process.

“They installed a candidate who was so unpopular with voters that she dropped out in 2020 without winning a single delegate,” Kennedy remarked. “How are people to choose when they don’t know whom they are choosing?” 

Kennedy noted that Harris failed to meet with him or provide an opportunity to speak with her. 

Several members of the Kennedy family issued a statement condemning RFK Jr.’s Trump endorsement.