Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pushing for his candidacy for the presidential election to be withdrawn in Pennsylvania and nine other swing states and is simultaneously ceasing his campaign activities, the independent candidate announced on Friday.

Kennedy’s lawyers had announced this step earlier in the day in a court filing in Pennsylvania, asking the judge to remove Kennedy’s name from the state’s electoral rolls because the independent candidate planned to support former President Donald Trump.

In a lengthy speech late Friday afternoon, Kennedy said he would remain on the 2024 presidential ballot in the clearly red and clearly blue states, but he felt he had to withdraw his candidacy in the swing states to avoid handing the election to the Democrats.

“In my heart, I no longer believe that I have a realistic chance of winning the election in the face of this relentless systematic censorship and media control,” Kennedy said. “If I had stayed on the ballot in the swing states, I probably would have handed the election to the Democrats.”

Kennedy is the son of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, two Democratic icons who were assassinated in the 1960s.

Kennedy initially began his campaign as a Democrat before becoming an independent last year. His famous family has distanced itself from his candidacy, and several members supported President Joe Biden for re-election before he dropped out of the race.

The independent candidate said he first spoke to Trump the day the former president survived an assassination attempt in Butler County, Pennsylvania, and learned that the two men agreed on more issues than he realized (in a leaked video of the conversation, Trump and Kennedy discussed anti-vaccine conspiracy theories).

Kennedy said he would join Trump’s campaign and indicated that he had been offered a position in chronic disease management in a possible Trump administration, but he did not specify a specific role.

Whether Kennedy’s name ultimately remains on the ballot for Pennsylvania’s November election depends on ongoing legal proceedings and a Pennsylvania judge’s response to his petition.

The longtime environmental lawyer and anti-vaccination activist’s hopeless campaign had stalled in recent weeks as his already low poll numbers continued to decline and his name was removed from New York’s November ballot.

Kennedy is facing challenges to his eligibility for the election in several states, including Pennsylvania, where he arrived in Harrisburg too late on Tuesday to testify as a witness in defense of his candidacy.

How can Kennedy’s name be removed from the ballot?

The deadline for candidates in Pennsylvania to voluntarily withdraw their names from the November ballot expired on August 12. However, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State, there are still two ways to remove Kennedy’s name from the list of presidential candidates: a court petition to remove him or a judgment against him in the ongoing trial challenging his candidacy.

In the statement filed Friday, first reported by the Associated Press, Kennedy appeared to begin the process of removing himself from office as his attorney, Paul Rossi, withdrew the campaign’s opposition to the challenge and asked the court to dismiss Kennedy’s nomination papers.

The withdrawal was “the result of today’s support of Donald Trump for the office of President of the United States,” the file said.

In an amended motion filed later in the day, Kennedy’s lawyers said they had misstated the reason for their request to remove Kennedy’s name from the ballot. They did not provide a new reason, but still requested that Kennedy be removed from the ballot and withdrew their objection to the challenge to his candidacy.

Continuing challenge to Kennedy’s candidacy

Even before Kennedy’s plans to possibly drop out of the race became public, the candidate was in danger of losing his place on the Pennsylvania ballot.

Earlier this month, a Democratic-aligned political action committee challenged Kennedy’s candidacy in court, arguing that he had not collected enough signatures to appear on the ballot and that the petition was invalid because Kennedy filed it from an address in New York, where he does not live, rather than from his California residence.

Parts of the petition echoed arguments made by the same PAC, Clear Choice Action, used in New York, where Kennedy’s name was removed from the ballot last week.

The Pennsylvania state court held an evidentiary hearing in the case this week and is expected to issue a ruling in the coming weeks. Kennedy’s withdrawal of his objection to the appeal allows the court to remove him from the ballot.

He even went a step further and formally asked the court to remove him, a process that would have been necessary if the judge had voted to keep Kennedy on the ballot.

What will Kennedy’s departure mean?

Although Kennedy’s candidacy does not pose a serious challenge to either Vice President Kamala Harris or Trump, Republicans and Democrats had feared that Kennedy could act as a spoilsport and steal enough votes from one candidate or the other to decide the election in the Commonwealth and other crucial battlegrounds.

Kennedy was leading by 5% among registered voters in Pennsylvania, according to a poll released earlier this month by The New York Times and Siena College, a figure higher than the 2% lead Harris had over former Trump in the poll.

Third-party candidates have often been disruptive in Pennsylvania. In 2016, Green Party candidate Jill Stein received nearly 50,000 votes in the state, while former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost the state by just over 44,000 votes.

Kennedy’s support for Trump could persuade some potential Kennedy voters to vote for the former president.

Aaron Kirschman, a York County voter who planned to vote for Kennedy, said he would likely vote for Trump if he was promised a spot in the former president’s Cabinet.

Kirschman said he felt he would be better off under Trump’s presidency, but was no fan of the former president. Kennedy in the Cabinet, Kirschman said, would change his calculations.

“I may not vote for Trump, but I’m voting for RFK in the executive branch,” Kirschman said.

Editor Jeremy Roebuck contributed to this article.