Can the Kennedy conspiracy theorist upend the 2024 presidential election? Hisexpected VP pick Nicole Shanahan might help him.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to name Nicole Shanahan, a Silicon Valley lawyer and ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, as his running mate in his 2024 independent presidential bid.
Shanahan does not have political experience, but she has previously donated to Democrats, including President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, and paid for the Kennedy campaign’s Super Bowl ad earlier this year. The announcement is expected at a campaign event in Oakland, California, on Tuesday.
Naming a running mate doesn’t make Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with several controversial views and a storied last name, any less of a longshot candidate. Just like every third-party candidate before him, he’s unlikely to come anywhere near winning the White House.
But he does have the potential to tip the election, though it’s not yet clear in which direction.
Kennedy is currently averaging about 12 percent in the polls, according to RealClearPolling. Celinda Lake, a pollster for President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign who continues to work with the Democratic National Committee, said that’s a worrying signal for Biden, based on polling and focus groups her firm has been conducting that suggest Kennedy will pull voters from Biden. Clifford Young, who leads Ipsos’s global election and political polling risk practice, said it’s too early to be certain whether Biden or Trump stands to lose the most from Kennedy’s rise, but if he actually received such a large share of the vote, he has real potential to be a spoiler.
Kennedy’s ability to seriously cut into either Biden’s or Trump’s chances of winning, however, is limited by his ability to get on the ballot in all 50 states, which will require amassing a lot of signatures in an effort that would cost millions of dollars before fast-approaching deadlines. His campaign says he has qualified in four states so far, including two key battlegrounds: Nevada and Arizona.
The more states where he can get on the ballot, the more potential for chaos his presence in the race creates. Democrats are beginning to take that threat more seriously.
“This election is going to be extremely close just like the last election, so every vote that does not go to Joe Biden is going to hurt Joe Biden, whether it goes to Donald Trump or to RFK. It’s all the same, and with the race this close, we can’t afford to lose any votes,” said Chuck Rocha, a senior adviser on Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) 2020 presidential campaign.Who is RFK Jr.?
It’s still very early in the election cycle, and many voters may not know much about Kennedy beyond his name — and they may not have heard what he believes. Some analysts think his support in the current polling represents more symbolic discontent from voters who dislike both Biden and Trump than a real commitment to supporting him as an individual candidate.
“People are not paying attention,” Young said. “He’s filling a vacuum. And that vacuum is this disaffected voter vacuum. I think he’s a placeholder more than anything else.” Kennedy, who announced his candidacy in April, is the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy and son of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. For much of his life, he has been a scion for one of the most storied families in Democratic Party politics and backed Democrats.
