Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was able to get off the ballot in North Carolina, but he has now failed to do so in another battleground state: Wisconsin. The rejection from the latter state’s top court came the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Kennedy’s bid to be on the ballot in New York.
Michigan’s top court earlier this month likewise said he’ll be on the swing state’s ballot.
These rulings follow the suspension of Kennedy’s independent presidential campaign last month and his endorsement of Republican nominee Donald Trump. Since dropping out of the race, he has fought to stay off the ballot in swing states, where he could hurt Trump, while trying to get on them elsewhere, such as New York in the attempt that failed Friday.
The Wisconsin rejection also came Friday. Upholding a lower court’s ruling against Kennedy, the state’s top court noted that the lower court had “pointed to the fact Kennedy had simultaneously claimed harm in some states from not being removed from the ballot and harm in other states from not being placed on the ballot.” The court also cited
… the harm that would be inflicted on the public if the requested injunction were granted, including the high cost of reprinting ballots or the logistical problems in conducting an election with ballots on which stickers were placed to obscure Kennedy’s name, as he requested.”
The Wisconsin high court also called out the quality of Kennedy’s lawyering, writing that his briefs failed to develop arguments “to even a minimal standard sufficient for us to consider their merits.” While emphasizing that it wasn’t necessarily in agreement with the lower court’s legal conclusions, the top court said it was simply “unable to make such determinations, given the inadequate briefing presented to us.” The Deadline: Legal Newsletter returns Oct. 4. Subscribe for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the new Supreme Court term and developments in Donald Trump’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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