Donald Trump is openly supporting all fringe and Third Party candidates on the ballot because he mistakenly believes they'll take votes away from Vice President Kamala Harris.
While Robert Kennedy Jr has "suspended" his campaign to endorse Trump, his name is still on the ballot in several states. Kennedy has attempted to remove his name via lawsuits, but thus far remains as a "spoiler"--for Trump, not VP Harris.
Trump has welcomed other candidates such as Cornel West, calling him “one of my favorite candidates.” Another is Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who has brought back all of her unsuccessful Putin-backed talking points from 2016.
Yet Trump favors both for the same reason. “I like her very much. You know why? She takes 100% from them. He takes 100%.”
The Virginia-based nonprofit People Over Party has pushed to get West on the ballot in Arizona, Maine, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, as well as North Carolina, where VP Harris is gaining in popularity after nearly ten visits this year alone.
What Trump and his team don't understand is that Democratic voters fully reject Stein and West, seeing them as distractions from the real battle between Trump and the Vice President.
Another fringe candidate, Randall Terry, appeals to a small subset of leftist Democrats for his opposition to both abortion and the Constitution, but would only take votes from Trump, not VP Harris.
Whether or not West and Stein will appear on all ballots is still in question. On Thursday, Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger overruled an administrative law judge and placed West, Stein, and Party for Socialism and Liberation nominee Claudia De la Cruz on the ballot.