Last year, attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was running for president as a Democrat, and he was polling at 20 percent in some polls of the Democratic primary. Then in October, Kennedy dropped his campaign’s party affiliation, and he began running as an independent.
Still, the Democrats were always breathing easy about President Joe Biden’s prospects in November. They saw Kennedy as a longshot challenger in the Democratic primaries, and — while acknowledging Kennedy’s capacity to pull votes from Biden — they considered Kennedy’s campaign a possible threat to Republicans in some states, too.
Then on Monday, Kennedy reached out to disaffected Democrats by choosing philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.. and now he may pull some voters from Biden in the general election.
Shanahan, a 38-year-old lawyer, leads Bia-Echo Foundation, an organization with the mission to direct money toward issues including women’s reproductive science, criminal justice reform and environmental causes. A newcomer to elected office, Shanahan has focused more on issues than politics.
Kennedy made the announcement in Oakland, California, where Shanahan was raised in an impoverished family.
“Nicole and I both left the Democratic Party,” he said. “Our values didn’t change. The Democratic Party did.”
Amid this announcement, Biden’s allies smeared Kennedy as a spoiler.
“He’s a spoiler. He’s tried to coast on his family legacy and the goodwill they have in the African American community,” Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis said of Kennedy on a conference call with reporters organized by the DNC. “But the Kennedy family has denounced this lame attempt and they’ve quite frankly stood with President Biden.”
The Democratic National Committee is gearing up to take on Kennedy and other third-party options, including No Labels, a well-funded group working to recruit a centrist ticket. Overseeing the DNC’s effort is veteran strategist Mary Beth Cahill, a onetime chief of staff to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump’s allies have criticized Shanahan’s record as too liberal.
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a far-left radical that supports reparations, backs the Green New Deal, and wants to ban fracking,” said Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesperson for the pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. “It’s no surprise he would pick a Biden donor leftist as his running mate.”
Without the backing of a party, Kennedy faces an arduous task to get on the ballot, with varying rules across the 50 states. He’s picking a running mate now because about half of the states require him to designate one before he can apply for ballot access.
Kennedy has secured access to the ballot in Utah. He and an allied super PAC, American Values 2024, say they’ve collected enough signatures to qualify in several other states, including swing states Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, but election officials there have not yet signed off.
In Nevada, Democratic Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said in a March 7 letter to independent candidates that they must nominate a vice presidential candidate before collecting signatures. The letter came days after Kennedy’s campaign announced he’d collected enough signatures in the state.
Kennedy has acknowledged these hurdles, and he’s urged Americans to “take a risk” on his campaign.
“If Nicole and I can get Americans to refuse to vote from fear, we’re going to be in the White House in November,” he said.
In a nearly 30-minute speech introducing herself to Kennedy supporters, Shanahan echoed the critique at the heart of Kennedy’s campaign — that both major parties, the media and the U.S. government are beholden to greedy profiteers. She also embraced his Kennedy’s inconsistent remarks on vaccinations.
Formerly married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Shanahan is deeply enmeshed in the Silicon Valley technology culture that Kennedy frequently critiques. She claims to have amassed the know-how and the personal connections necessary to bust the tech industry.
Take a look at Shanahan’s speech —
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWzFLcwX9rQ
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.