Robert F Kennedy Jr names tech lawyer Nicole Shanahan as 2024 running mate

Robert F Kennedy Jr has selected Nicole Shanahan, a tech attorney and wealthy philanthropist, as his running mate in an independent campaign that could upset the 2024 race for the White House.

Kennedy, an environmental attorney who gained notoriety as a vaccine sceptic and conspiracy theorist, introduced Shanahan at a campaign event in Oakland on Tuesday.

Kennedy, 70, a scion of the US political dynasty that includes former president John F Kennedy, also presented Shanahan, 38, as a fresh and youthful voice in a presidential contest between 81-year-old Joe Biden and 77-year-old Donald Trump.

Democrats are especially concerned that Kennedy could pull votes away from Biden, spoiling the election. Recent polling from Quinnipiac projected Kennedy could receive as much as 15% of the vote in a race involving Biden and Trump, amid waning enthusiasm for the candidates from the two major parties.

Kennedy will face an expensive, and uphill battle to get on the ballot in all 50 states, which will involve gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures. He has made it on to the ballot in only one state so far, Utah. Still, the Democratic National Committee has called Kennedy a “stalking horse” and said third-party candidates may have tipped the 2016 election to Trump.

Earlier this year, the DNC filed a federal election complaint accusing Kennedy and a political action committee backing his third-party bid of illegally colluding to qualify for the ballot in swing states crucial to Biden’s re-election. Kennedy’s campaign has denied breaching financial barriers between candidates and outside groups, which is prohibited by federal campaign law.

The Democrats have also said that a major donor to American Values 2024, the Super Pac backing Kennedy, is Tim Mellon, a businessman who has also backed Trump.

Shanahan told the New York Times she has contributed $4m to American Values 2024.

The Bay Area entrepreneur is known in tech circles as the founder of ClearAccessIP, a startup that uses software to help companies manage and distribute patents and patent rights. But she gained notoriety after her 2018 marriage to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, one of the wealthiest people in the world. The couple’s divorce in 2022 drew extra scrutiny following a Wall Street Journal report that Shanahan had conducted an affair with Tesla and X chief Elon Musk. She has denied the allegations.

In February, she helped finance a $5m campaign advertisement for Kennedy during the Super Bowl, which alluded to his uncle John F Kennedy’s successful 1960 White House run. The ad was denounced by Kennedy’s family, who have disavowed his campaign and his baseless theories on vaccines and the Covid pandemic, among other issues.

Shanahan told the New York Times that she is not an anti-vaxxer, but has shared Kennedy’s discredited claims about the safety of vaccinations.