An appeals court in North Carolina delivered a blow to Vice President Kamala Harris in the Tar Heel State, agreeing to take Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s name off the state’s ballots.
Hours before the first batches of November absentee ballots were to be sent to registered voters who requested them, the Court of Appeals granted Kennedy’s request Friday to halt the mailing of ballots that included his name.
Kennedy suspended his independent bid for the White House two weeks ago, choosing to endorse Trump instead. His decision came as polls suggested that his supporters could boost Trump’s campaign, and Kennedy admitted that his presence would be a “spoiler” in the battleground states, which is why he said he had already begun the process of removing his name from those ballots and urging voters in those states against voting for him.
Those efforts were tested in North Carolina, where the horse race remains razor-thin. On Thursday, a day before the first batches of November absentee ballots were to be sent to registered voters who requested them, Wake County Superior Court Judge Rebecca Holt refused to take Kennedy’s name off the ballot.
The judge had agreed to order that election officials not send out any ballots before noon Friday, but the appeals ruling informed Holt that she was to order the State Board of Elections to distribute ballots without Kennedy’s name on them. No legal explanation was given.
State law requires the first absentee ballots to be mailed no later than 60 days before the general election, which will take place on November 5 this year.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivers remarks at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel on August 23, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. Inset: Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Savannah, Georgia, on August 29, 2024.
Rebecca Noble/Christian Monterrosa/AFP
Although North Carolina has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Barack Obama in 2008, Trump’s advantage in the state has shrunk in recent elections. He won by 3.5 percent of the vote in 2016 but only by 1.3 percent in 2020. Currently, his lead is less than 1 percentage point. Trump leads by 0.6 percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight’s tracker. RealClearPolitics’ polling average shows Trump 0.7 points ahead of Harris.
Friday’s ruling could give Trump a boost, lifting him out of a tight race and putting him further ahead of Harris.
Anderson Clayton, the chairwoman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, told CNN that RFK Jr.’s name should remain on the ballot because “ballots were supposed to go out today” and now there is a “great corruption in our court of appeals with the Republican take over.”
“We’re arguing for him to stay on the ballot in the sense that ballots are supposed to go out today. It’s egregious in my opinion” Clayton said. “It’s interfering with our election system and its integrity right now, which is why we’re fighting back against this.”
She added that it would cost “potentially millions of dollars” to reprint the ballots. More than 2.9 million absentee and in-person ballots have been printed so far.
Newsweek reached out to Harris’ campaign via email for comment.
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