A broad coalition of the Kennedy household will endorse President Biden on Thursday at a marketing campaign rally in Philadelphia, pointedly rejecting one among their very own in Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the unbiased candidate who many Democrats consider poses a major risk to Mr. Biden’s re-election possibilities.
Among the many family of Mr. Kennedy anticipated to again Mr. Biden are his siblings Joseph, Kerry, Rory, Kathleen, Maxwell and Christopher. The Biden marketing campaign launched an inventory of 15 Kennedys set to look on the rally, but it surely mentioned different relations would endorse the president as effectively. Kerry Kennedy will introduce Mr. Biden on the rally, the marketing campaign mentioned, and Joe Kennedy III, Mr. Kennedy’s nephew and a former Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, will achieve this at a second occasion.
The present of pressure will ship the clearest sign but that America’s most storied Democratic household is deeply fearful that one among its personal might tip the 2024 election to former President Donald J. Trump, and hopes to make use of its affect to attempt to cease him.
Many relations have beforehand expressed sturdy disapproval of Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy, voicing anguish about his promotion of conspiracy theories and confusion about why he’s difficult a Democratic president they admire. Like many Democrats, they fear that he might assist Mr. Trump win if he attracts even a small variety of votes away from Mr. Biden within the battleground states — contests that have been determined by tens of hundreds of votes in 2020.
Mr. Trump is more likely to stay the primary goal of assaults on the Philadelphia occasion, however the symbolic repudiation of Mr. Kennedy is not going to be refined.
“We are able to say immediately, with no much less urgency, that our rights and freedoms are as soon as once more in peril,” Kerry Kennedy is predicted to say, based on excerpts from her speech shared by the Biden marketing campaign. “That’s the reason all of us want to come back collectively in a marketing campaign that ought to unite not solely Democrats, however all People, together with Republicans, and independents, who consider in what Lincoln referred to as the higher angels of our nature.”
The household has telegraphed its intentions: Final month, members visited Mr. Biden on the White Home for St. Patrick’s Day, sharing a photograph of him with a big group of them. “From one proud Irish household to a different — it was good to have you ever all again on the White Home,” Mr. Biden wrote on social media.
Members of the Kennedy household additionally denounced an advert {that a} tremendous PAC supporting Mr. Kennedy ran through the Tremendous Bowl. The advert intently resembled a spot supporting John F. Kennedy, his uncle, throughout his 1960 bid for the White Home.
With the election months away, and Mr. Kennedy nonetheless pursuing entry to the poll in lots of states, it’s arduous to know whether or not he would draw extra votes from Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden’s camp. However polls recommend that Mr. Trump’s base of help is far more mounted than Mr. Biden’s, that means it’s doable that among the president’s voters might be open to another.
The Democratic Social gathering has put collectively a crew of attorneys aimed toward monitoring Mr. Kennedy’s risk, particularly in battleground states. The group may even search to counter different potential spoilers akin to Cornel West, a progressive educational in search of the presidency, and the Inexperienced Social gathering.
Democrats have already watched the collapse of 1 third-party effort they’d nervously eyed: The centrist group No Labels, after in search of to arrange a reasonable politician with nationwide recognition as an alternative choice to Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, introduced early this month that it could abandon its try.
Mr. Kennedy holds a smorgasbord of coverage positions not simply categorized by ideology. He has expressed liberal views on abortion, the atmosphere and revenue inequality, however has additionally promoted false theories in regards to the security of vaccines and pushed arguments which are extra widespread on the suitable.
This month, he questioned the Justice Division’s effort to prosecute those that rioted on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, downplaying the severity of the assault. His marketing campaign additionally fired a marketing consultant who had recommended that supporting Mr. Kennedy would assist Mr. Trump defeat Mr. Biden.
Nonetheless, Mr. Trump has signaled that he, too, sees Mr. Kennedy as probably attracting voters away from his marketing campaign. He posted on social media final month that Mr. Kennedy was extra “radical Left” than Mr. Biden, casting him as a liberal Democrat in disguise. But Mr. Trump has additionally privately expressed intrigue with the concept of selecting Mr. Kennedy as his operating mate — a notion that these near him think about unrealistic and that Mr. Kennedy himself rejected.
Mr. Biden’s rally in Philadelphia is the ultimate main cease in a three-day swing via Pennsylvania. Through the journey, he laid out his financial and tax agenda, repeatedly attacking Mr. Trump as rich, out of contact and an enemy of working individuals.
Members of the Kennedy household who seem on the rally are anticipated to invoke Robert F. Kennedy, Mr. Kennedy’s father.
“I can solely think about how Donald Trump’s outrageous lies and conduct would have horrified my father, Robert F. Kennedy, who proudly served as lawyer normal of america, and honored his pledge to uphold the regulation and shield the nation,” Kerry Kennedy will say, based on her ready remarks. “Daddy stood for equal justice, human rights and freedom from need and concern. Simply as President Biden does immediately.”
After Mr. Biden speaks, Kennedy relations will make calls to voters and knock on doorways, the Biden marketing campaign mentioned.
