Amid a quest for nationwide ballot access, attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign is set to focus heavily on New York, a state where the intentions of Mr. Kennedy’s campaign have been muddied since one staffer suggested the independent’s supporters should work with Republicans against President Biden in the state.

In the coming weeks, Mr. Kennedy’s campaign is set to hold about a third of its events in New York, a state that is not expected to be competitive on the statewide level and one that is better known for being the site of marquee fundraisers rather than political rallies.

The campaign is set to hold rallies at towns like Holbrook, Sag Harbor, and Melville on Long Island and at Harriman in the Hudson Valley. The campaign is also holding a ballot access petitioning event in the state, and, at the moment, it is the only state where such a push is scheduled.

Looming over the campaign’s New York focus is a plan laid out by one of Mr. Kennedy’s surrogates in the state — an anti-vaccine activist, Rita Palma, who suggested that supporters of Mr. Kennedy and President Trump could work together to deny Mr. Biden the state’s electoral votes.

At an April event first reported on by CNN, Ms. Palma described a scheme in which the state’s Republicans would team up with Mr. Kennedy’s supporters to deliver New York’s 28 electoral votes to Mr. Kennedy, keeping them from Mr. Biden.

“There’s no Biden voters in the House, right?” Ms. Palma said. “The Kennedy voter and the Trump voter, the enemy — our mutual enemy is Biden.” Ms. Palma said that such a strategy could be deployed not only in New York but also in Maryland, California, Illinois, and “most of the northwest.”

“New York is really a good environment for doing just this because the combination of Republicans and independents almost equal half,” Ms. Palma said in a leaked video. “If the Democrats are moving in our direction and the Republicans, you know, accept the fact that New York is going to go blue, then we can definitely give Bobby the 28 and chip away at Biden’s 270.”

After the video leaked, Mr. Kennedy’s campaign fired Ms. Palma. Mr. Kennedy’s campaign manager and daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox, then said in a statement that Ms. Palma’s comments were not representative of the campaign.

“Palma was speaking as a private citizen and her statements in no way reflect campaign strategy, the sole aim of which is to win the White House,” Ms. Fox said.

While the Kennedy campaign says Ms. Palma’s comments did not represent it, Ms. Palma is still promoting Mr. Kennedy on social media and holding a private reception with Mr. Kennedy on April 28. Ms. Palma, before her firing, was initially listed as one of the hosts for the event, though her name has been taken off the event’s bill since she left the campaign.

Mr. Kennedy’s campaign provided a different explanation for its focus on the Empire State: the fast-approaching deadline for ballot access. The campaign needs to submit 45,000 signatures by May 28.

However, the ballot access deadline for independent candidates in Texas is even sooner, on May 13, and requires even more signatures, 113,151. Mr. Kennedy’s campaign doesn’t have a single event scheduled in the Lone Star State.

The Kennedy campaign tells the Sun that its push in New York is part of its campaign to appear on the ballot in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and said the campaign “is ahead of all of its ballot access milestones.”

“In New York, organizing efforts have been ongoing for months in anticipation of our petition drive, which began April 16,” a campaign spokeswoman, Stefanie Spear, tells the Sun. “No independent presidential candidate has achieved ballot access in New York within the short time span being imposed upon us.”

Independent candidates in New York must collect the required signatures between April 16 and May 28, giving candidates 42 days to do so. Texas, by comparison, allows candidates to begin circulating their petitions on March 5 for a May 13 deadline, giving candidates 69 days to collect more than twice as many signatures.

“We look forward to making history in the state that once had Robert F. Kennedy as their U.S. senator and where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. began his environmental career by spearheading the project to clean up the Hudson River from corporate polluters,” Ms. Spear tells the Sun.

The super PAC supporting Mr. Kennedy, American Values 2024, which is headquartered at New York, also appears to have contracted with the former Libertarian Party candidate in the state, Larry Sharpe, to help with “national organizing,” according to the PAC’s Federal Elections Commission filings.

Aside from Ms. Palma’s comments, there have been other signs of potential coordination between Mr. Kennedy’s campaign and Mr. Trump’s organization. 

On Monday, Mr. Kennedy said in a tweet that “emissaries” for Mr. Trump had asked him to be his running mate. Deseret News reports that this exchange happened as recently as last week. Reportedly, the call was canceled following Ms. Palma’s firing.

“President Trump calls me an ultra-left radical. I’m soooo liberal that his emissaries asked me to be his VP,” Mr. Kennedy said. “I respectfully declined the offer.”

Ms. Palma did not immediately reply to a request for comment from the Sun.