The U.S. Supreme Court denied a bid Tuesday by former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be removed from the ballot in Wisconsin and Michigan for the Nov. 5 election. Kennedy has said he wants voters who would have backed him to cast ballots for the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump. 

The court declined Kennedy’s emergency requests to order the Wisconsin Elections Commission and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to take him off the ballot in those states. Michigan and Wisconsin are among a handful of closely contested states expected to decide the outcome of the race between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.  

Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented from the decision concerning the Michigan ballot only. No other justice publicly dissented. 

Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist known by his initials RFK Jr., has sought the Supreme Court’s intervention in his attempts to stay on the ballot in some states while dropping off others. In September, the Supreme Court rejected his bid to be restored to the ballot in New York. 

Kennedy suspended his campaign in August and endorsed the former president’s candidacy. Kennedy has urged his supporters everywhere to back Trump and has withdrawn from the ballot in a number of Republican-leaning states.  
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