Who is she? Why is she here? Because RFK Jr. needs the money.
To paraphrase the memorable words of a notable figure who once ran for vice president on a third-party ticket: Who is she? Why is she here?
With apologies to Adm.
James Stockdale, a man with a distinguished military career who lightheartedly posed those questions about himself as Ross Perot’s running mate during his opening statement at the 1992 vice-presidential debate, they are worth asking in all seriousness about the selection that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Tuesday.
Kennedy’s pick for the vice-presidential spot on his ticket is Nicole Shanahan, a 38-year-old philanthropist and tech entrepreneur who has never run for office before. At the rally in Oakland at which he introduced her, Kennedy described Shanahan as “my fellow lawyer, a brilliant scientist, technologist, a fierce warrior mom.”
“I need someone with a spiritual dimension and compassion and idealism and, above all, a deep love for the United States of America,” Kennedy added.
Whatever Shanahan’s other virtues, the most important reason for her selection is that she is worth a fortune as the ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who ranks as the 10th richest person in the world on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Their 2023 divorce settlement is confidential, but the Wall Street Journal reported that she was seeking more than $1 billion.
Now that Shanahan is on the ticket with Kennedy, campaign finance law allows her to pour unlimited amounts of money into his campaign — something he badly needs. His campaign treasury is running low, with just over $5 million cash on hand reported in its latest federal filing, and qualifying for a spot on state ballots across the country is an expensive proposition. Candidates must have the resources to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures.
So far, Kennedy, who is polling in the low double digits nationally, has only made it onto only one ballot: Utah’s. Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing him of violating the law by relying upon a supposedly independent super PAC to do the legwork for his
campaign.
Shanahan was already a major donor to that super PAC, American Values 2024. She chipped in $4 million to help pay for a bizarre 30-second Super Bowl spot that manipulated footage from a famous ad that his uncle John F. Kennedy had run during the 1960 campaign.
The Super Bowl commercial drew protests from some of his relatives, many of whom have spoken out against Kennedy for spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation about vaccines. In a subsequent post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Kennedy distanced himself from the ad and apologized for it, writing: “I’m so sorry if the Super Bowl advertisement caused anyone in my family pain. The ad was created and aired by the American Values Super PAC without any involvement or approval from my campaign. FEC rules prohibit Super PACS from consulting with me or my staff.”
There’s no conceivable scenario in which Kennedy might actually win the election. No third-party candidate has won even a single state since 1968, when segregationist George Wallace carried five in the
South — Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi — and got 46 electoral votes.
But given how close the margins are likely to be in a handful of key states in 2024, it is easy to imagine that Kennedy or other third-party contenders could sap enough votes to act as a spoiler.
What’s generally assumed is that President Biden is the major-party contender most likely to be hurt by Kennedy, but there is evidence that presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump also stands to lose votes to him in some places. A recent
Fox News survey in Pennsylvania, for instance, showed Trump two percentage points ahead of Biden in a two-man race but tied when the names of Kennedy and two other independent contenders, Jill Stein and Cornel West, were added to the poll question.
“Our campaign is a spoiler. I agree with that. It is a spoiler for President Biden and for President Trump,” Kennedy has said.
In 2016, Green Party candidate Stein got enough votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to arguably tip those states — and hand the election — to Trump. “We learned after 2016 that we can’t ignore third parties,” noted Lis Smith, who is advising the Democratic National Committee’s effort against third-party candidates.
But Shanahan’s selection could complicate things. “She was picked for one reason and one reason only: the money,” Smith told me.
In a February interview with my colleague Michael Scherer, Shanahan said she still considered herself “a massive Democratic Party supporter” who had initially been concerned when Kennedy abandoned what had been a bid for the Democratic nomination in October to mount an independent candidacy. “I had real concerns what that could do to the election,” she said.
But, eventually, “it became apparent to me that there’s a lot more silent support for RFK than I could have ever imagined,” Shanahan said.
She might be right, and if her money puts him on more ballots, it will be silent no more.