Robert F. Kennedy chose wealthy tech attorney-entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan as his running mate. She has no background in politics or government but will help finance the RFK Jr. ballot-access drive.
At a crucial moment when Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential candidacy is poised between historic spoiler and asterisk, the populist conspiracy theorist has acquired a running mate with a shallow political résumé but deep pockets. On Tuesday at an event in Oakland, he named wealthy 38-year-old San Francisco Bay Area attorney-entrepreneur and political neophyte Nicole Shanahan as his vice-presidential prospect.
Shanahan is a familiar figure in Bay Area tech circles, probably best known for her four-year marriage to Google co-founder Sergey Brin (which ended in divorce in 2022) and her current position as president and founder of Bia-Echo, a private foundation that invests in “reproductive longevity and equality, criminal-justice reform, and a healthy and livable planet.” Not a lot is known about Shanahan’s issue profile or political leanings, though she has been a Democratic donor in the recent past. In 2020, she made contributions to the presidential campaigns of Pete Buttigieg, Marianne Williamson, and (eventually) Joe Biden. But she’s not enough of a public figure that her selection will do much to define the Kennedy-led ticket.
