Court order: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will not appear on Nevada ballot

Despite missing the deadline to be removed from Nevada’s general election ballots, Robert F. Kennedy’s name will not appear.
That’s because of an order Tuesday afternoon filed on behalf of Judge James Russell in Carson City District Court.
It stems from a lawsuit by the Nevada Democratic Party to keep Kennedy off the ballot. The lawsuit claimed he’d violated state law for independent candidates and his affiliation with other political parties that were different than his party affiliation in Nevada.
He’d filed a petition opposing the Democrats’ effort.
After dropping out of the race last week and throwing his support behind Donald Trump, Kennedy said he wanted to remove his name from ballots in battleground states like Nevada in order to help the former president.
Nevada’s deadline was Aug. 20 for independent candidates to withdraw – three days before Kennedy’s announcement. The only way for him to get removed from the ballot was to end his opposition to the Democrats’ lawsuit, so he withdrew his petition and the court dismissed the matter.
The dismissal seemed to give everybody what they wanted: the Nevada Democratic Party succeeded in keeping Kennedy off the ballot and Kennedy fulfilled his strategy of not having his Nevada supporters torn between him and Trump on Election Day.
It’s not clear how much Kennedy’s move will help Trump.
On the day before Kennedy endorsed Trump, the Democratic National Committee put out a memo saying Kennedy’s exit would not hurt Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.
Citing Kennedy poll numbers falling from 15% to 5%, the memo said, “The favorability decline was especially precipitous with Democrats and potential third-party voters open to Harris, but not Trump.”
It concluded, “With no meaningful base of support and sky-high negatives among Democrats, RFK Jr.’s threat to VP Harris was neutralized.”
The Trump campaign sees Kennedy’s endorsement as a positive development.
“When you hear or see the Harris team and/or the Democrats try and spin otherwise, the data clearly paints a different picture,” it said in a news release, citing polling that Kennedy supporters were more likely to support Trump if Kennedy wasn’t on the ballot.
“This is good news for President Trump and his campaign – plain and simple.”
The latest Nevada poll, conducted by Rasmussen from Aug. 13 to 19 before Kennedy dropped out, shows Trump leading Harris 48% to 46% with “other” candidates supported by 3% of survey participants.
Mark Robison is the state politics reporter for the Reno Gazette Journal, with occasional forays into other topics. Email comments to [email protected] or comment on Mark’s Greater Reno Facebook page.