Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Announces Nicole Shanahan as His 2024 Running Mate

Mar. 15, 2025

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.namedNicole Shanahan, a California-based tech attorney and entrepreneur, as his vice presidential pick on Tuesday in his independent bid for the White House.

Speaking in Shanahan’s hometown of Oakland, Kennedy Jr. introduced his new running mate, saying he set out looking for someone who was “battle tested” to join his ticket: “I wanted a partner who … possesses the gift of curiosity; an open, inquiring mind; and the confidence to change even her strongest opinions in the face of conflicting evidence.”

“I found all of those qualities in a woman who grew up right here in Oakland. The daughter of immigrants who overcame every daunting obstacle and went on to achieve the highest levels of the American dream,” he said.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Nicole Shanahan.Steve Granitz/FilmMagic; Gonzalo Marroquin/Getty

Steve Granitz/FilmMagic; Gonzalo Marroquin/Getty

Shanahan joins Kennedy — who is the 70-year-old nephew of late PresidentJohn F. Kennedyand son of late U.S. Attorney GeneralRobert F. Kennedy— in challenging presumptive major party nomineesJoe BidenandDonald Trump. She has previously been a political donor to numerous Democratic campaigns.

Though Kennedy comes from an iconic family of Democrats, he announced last October that he wasleaving the Democratic Partyand would be running for president as an independent. Several members of his family havedistanced themselves from his controversial viewsand continuedexpressing support for Bidenin the 2024 election, as Kennedy targets voters who are distrustful of media, corporations and the government.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the grandson of RFK, is running for president as an independent in 2024.Joe Scarnici/Getty

Shanahan’s background is in law and, after working as a paralegal and graduating from Santa Clara University School of Law in 2014, she earned afellowshipat CodeX, the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics.

She would go on to found patent platform company ClearAccessIP, which she sold in 2020.

While she has never run for office, 38-year-old Shanahan has been politically active for years and, as theLos Angeles Timesreports, helped produce and pay for the commercial for Kennedy that aired during the Super Bowl in February.

Shanahan came into the public spotlight in 2018, when she married Google co-founder Sergey Brin, one of the world’s wealthiest men. The two had a daughter and separated in 2021, and Brinfiled for divorce in June 2022.

Nicole Shanahan and ex-husband Sergey Brin attend a 2019 event in Mountain View, California.Taylor Hill/Getty

In July 2023, Shanahancommitted to partner Jacob Strumwasser, a vice president atLightning Labsand a “reformed Wall Street guy,” as she described him to PEOPLE.

In a personal essay penned for PEOPLE, Shanahan opened up about her challenging childhood in Oakland, where she grew up on welfare with a father who suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and a Chinese immigrant mother who struggled to make ends meet before becoming an accountant.

“In many ways, I was perfectly trained as a child to get through this chapter of my life — the frenetic weight of a mentally ill father and a shell-shocked mother taught me to lean into a personal sense of self that has been bullishly cultivated through times of chaos,” Shanahan wrote in the essay. “Bad things happen, injustice happens, but there are always tools for overcoming them, it’s a matter of relentless commitment to oneself.”

source: people.com