Robert F Kennedy Jr, the beleaguered independent presidential candidate, reached out to the Kamala Harris campaign last week to discuss dropping out of the race and endorsing the Democrat, according to multiple reports.

Kennedy attempted to set up a meeting with Harris to propose him serving in her administration, possibly as a cabinet secretary, in exchange for his endorsement, the Washington Post reported.

Several outlets said that the Harris team did not respond to the approach from Kennedy, whose long-shot campaign is floundering following a series of controversies.

In the past six weeks, Kennedy has apologized for an alleged sexual assault, has been forced to explain why he staged the death of a bear cub in New York City’s Central Park, and has had to deny eating a dog.

Kennedy’s attempt to meet with Harris comes after he met with Donald Trump during the Republican national convention, reportedly to discuss a similar proposal. A video posted online on 16 July showed a phone call between Trump and Kennedy in which the former president appeared to offer an opportunity for the pair to work together in the future.

Kennedy addressed the comments in a post on X on Thursday.

“VP Harris’s Democratic Party would be unrecognizable to my father [Robert F Kennedy, the New York senator who was assassinated in 1968] and uncle and I cannot reconcile it with my values,” Kennedy wrote.

“I have no plans to endorse Kamala Harris for president. I do have a plan to defeat her.”

Earlier in the year, Kennedy was polling at around 10% nationally, but that has dropped to 5% over the past few months. The presidential election is expected to be very tight, however, which means both Democrats and Republicans have been concerned that Kennedy could pick up enough votes to influence the result.

“When we think about the margins that states like Michigan, Wisconsin, any of those midwestern states were decided in the last election, every single vote is going to count,” Emmitt Riley, a professor of politics and African and African American studies at Sewanee University and the chair of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists, told the Guardian this week.

“And so if it comes down to 30,000 votes, if it comes down to 5,000 votes, a small portion there [for Kennedy] would likely have a major impact on either Donald Trump’s ability to get to 270 or Kamala Harris’s ability to get to 270. And I think that that is what many people are concerned about.”