RFK Jr. defends his bid to get on the Pennsylvania ballot against the challenge from the Democrats

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday to defend his bid to get on the presidential ballot in the swing state of Pennsylvania, where Democrats are trying to oust him in what is expected to be a tough election.

Challengers close to the Democratic Party claim that Kennedy's candidacy documents contained a false home address – an allegation that has also been raised in other state courts – and that other serious flaws have been identified, such as the false names of people who allegedly testified that they had collected the signatures of thousands of voters.

Kennedy's campaign team dismissed the lawsuit as “frivolous.”

If Kennedy appears on the Pennsylvania ballot, he could draw crucial support from Republican candidate Donald Trump or Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in a state where margins of tens of thousands of votes gave Democrat Joe Biden victory in 2020 and Trump victory in 2016.

Pennsylvania's 19 votes – tied for fifth-highest with Illinois – are so important that Harris visited the state on Sunday and Trump visited both Saturday and Monday.

“They say if you win Pennsylvania, you win the whole thing,” Trump told a crowd at Mohegan Arena in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday.

National Democrats in particular have actively sought to undermine the candidacy of Kennedy, a scion of one of the party's most famous families. Trump has vacillated between denouncing Kennedy as a liberal and courting his support.

Kennedy, meanwhile, is fighting challenges in several other states, including Georgia, and is appealing the decision of a New York judge who last week rejected Kennedy's nomination petitions because his stated residence was a “sham address.” Kennedy lists New York as his address, but the judge ruled in favor of challengers who argued that Kennedy's actual residence is the Los Angeles home he shares with his wife, actress Cheryl Hines.

Kennedy's campaign team otherwise states that it has collected enough signatures to get on the ballot in all 50 states and that the candidacy is officially on the ballot in 22 states, including the contested states of Michigan and North Carolina.

In Pennsylvania, Jill Stein of the Green Party and Chase Oliver of the Libertarian Party filed petitions to get on the state's presidential ballot unopposed.

Two other court cases were still pending. One was brought by the Democrats over the nomination papers of the Socialism and Liberation Party's presidential candidate, Claudia De la Cruz, and one by the Republicans over the Constitution Party's presidential candidate, James Clymer.

___

Follow Marc Levy on