Shanahan, Nicole (1985- )

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    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Raises Just $2.6 Million

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    Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign has depended heavily on contributions from Nicole Shanahan, his vice-presidential pick, who did not make major new donations in May.Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign raised just $2.6 million in May, a paltry sum that speaks to how reliant his bid has become on his running mate, the wealthy Silicon Valley lawyer Nicole Shanahan.The Kennedy campaign raised less in May than it had in any previous month in 2024, according to filings on Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission. That was in large part because Ms. Shanahan, who has poured millions into their independent presidential campaign, barely contributed any additional money in May.The total raised by Mr. Kennedy was essentially the same as what he raised in April, not counting Ms. Shanahan: He brought in $10.7 million that month, but $8 million came from her. Earlier, when he announced her as his running mate in March, she almost immediately threw $2 million behind the campaign.Mr. Kennedy ended May with $6.4 million on hand. And yet that figure is only somewhat revealing about his financial position because of the looming possibility that Ms. Shanahan, at a moment’s notice, could inject more money into their bid. She has been able to do so directly because while campaign finance laws bar people from donating more than $3,300 to a campaign, candidates themselves can give unlimited sums of their own money.And Ms. Shanahan, a philanthropist who was once married to the Google co-founder Sergey Brin, is said to have access to over $1 billion. She has not signaled if there is a limit to how much she might spend.Mr. Kennedy and his allies have some unique costs associated with their campaign — primarily ballot-access work that can be expensive.His campaign spent about $6.3 million in May, but almost half of that was routed through a limited liability company that focuses on ballot access. The money laid out was labeled “campaign consulting,” making his precise expenditures somewhat opaque. More

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is Worse Than a Spoiler

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      Lately, you’ve probably been asking yourself: What does it mean that Nicole Shanahan has been chosen as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate?OK, maybe not.I know, you’ve got a full and busy life. Still, the Shanahan thing is sorta serious. Let’s discuss.R.F.K. Jr. is, as we all know, running for president as an independent — an effort that will further publicize his anti-vaccination views and perhaps provide a point to his life.Shanahan, a lawyer who has never won elective office, is notable for being really, really rich. She’s a billionaire, thanks to her five-year marriage to Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google. Many of us first heard of her when she put $4 million toward financing a Super Bowl ad for Kennedy that superimposed his face on some clips promoting his assassinated uncle. Which drove his siblings further into the arms of President Biden, the recent host of a White House St. Patrick’s Day party that included a mega-Kennedy guest list.“Nearly every single grandchild of Joe and Rose Kennedy supports Joe Biden,” R.F.K. Jr.’s younger sister Kerry said in a speech a few weeks after the gathering.In many presidential contests, a third-party candidate like Kennedy wouldn’t make a difference. Every four years, people you’ve never heard of manage to get themselves on the presidential ballot in one state or another. Never works — the last time we had a president who wasn’t affiliated with either the Democratic or the Republican Party was Millard Fillmore, who was the vice-presidential nominee of the Whig Party and got to be president in 1850 when Zachary Taylor died from supposedly eating too many cherries and drinking too much milk at a Fourth of July celebration.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Rich Candidates Burned Cash on Running for Office

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      It is a time-honored tradition in U.S. politics: wealthy people burning through their fortunes to ultimately lose an election.The costly realm of campaign politics has claimed its share of the fortunes of yet another business magnate with aspirations to higher office.Representative David Trone, Democrat of Maryland who co-owns the largest wine retailer in the country, poured more than $60 million of his personal fortune into his Senate campaign in Maryland, according to campaign finance reports filed to the Federal Election Commission. He lost the Democratic primary this week to Angela Alsobrooks, a county executive whose campaign had spent about a tenth of that amount.A day after Mr. Trone’s loss, Nicole Shanahan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate and a Silicon Valley investor who recently divorced the Google co-founder Sergey Brin, announced that she was doubling her stake in Mr. Kennedy’s independent presidential campaign. Her donation of another $8 million brings her total contributions to nearly $15 million, despite the fact that no third-party or independent candidate has come close to winning a presidential election in modern U.S. history.Mr. Kennedy’s campaign is so far only about half as expensive as the costliest self-funded presidential campaign this cycle: Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican entrepreneur, spent more than $30 million of his own wealth on his failed candidacy, dropping out in January after spending $3,500 per vote won in the Iowa caucuses. Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota who sold his software company to Microsoft for $1 billion, didn’t even get that far: He dropped out before a single vote was cast after having spent nearly $14 million on his presidential campaign.It is a time-honored tradition in U.S. politics: wealthy people burning dizzying sums of money to fuel their political ambitions through long-shot candidacies, or — as in Mr. Trone’s case — campaigns with good odds that simply don’t end up working out.A self-funded campaign is not always a recipe for disaster. Mr. Trone, for example, was successfully elected to Congress after spending a combined $31.3 million of his fortune to run in two House races. He lost to Jamie Raskin in the 2016 Democratic primary, but he won the 2018 primary to succeed Representative John Delaney, another wealthy Democrat. Jon S. Corzine, a liberal Wall Street executive, spent about $60 million, or $108 million adjusted for inflation, to win a Senate seat in New Jersey in 2000.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Turns on R.F.K. Jr. Amid Concerns He Could Attract Republican Voters

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      Former President Donald J. Trump is sharpening his attacks on the independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as new polls show an overlap between their core supporters.In a series of posts on his Truth Social media platform on Friday night, Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, took aim at both Mr. Kennedy and his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, a wealthy Silicon Valley lawyer and investor.“RFK Jr. is a Democrat ‘Plant,’ a Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place in order to help Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President in the History of the United States, get Re-Elected,” Mr. Trump wrote.Mr. Trump, who had privately discussed the idea of Mr. Kennedy as a running mate, echoed what Democrats have been saying for months about Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy — that it could swing the election. He also appeared to be adopting a new derisive nickname for him.“A Vote for Junior’ would essentially be a WASTED PROTEST VOTE, that could swing either way, but would only swing against the Democrats if Republicans knew the true story about him,” he said.Mr. Kennedy fired back on Saturday in his own social media post.“When frightened men take to social media they risk descending into vitriol, which makes them sound unhinged,” he wrote on X. “President Trump’s rant against me is a barely coherent barrage of wild and inaccurate claims that should best be resolved in the American tradition of presidential debate.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What to Know About RFK. Jr. and His Threat to Biden and Trump

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      Mr. Kennedy has become the most prominent independent or third-party presence in the 2024 race.The independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has emerged as a wild card of the 2024 election, attracting a motley mix of ideologically diverse supporters, raising piles of cash and drawing legal attacks from Democrats and verbal barrages from former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Kennedy, 70, the son of Robert F. Kennedy and an heir to an American political dynasty, had a troubled youth and young adulthood marked by drug abuse. He became an environmental lawyer, most famous for suing corporate polluters in an effort to clean up the Hudson Valley watershed.In the past decade, he has become a prominent voice in the anti-vaccine movement, promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the risks of childhood vaccinations and other public health measures. That work gave him a large platform during the coronavirus pandemic, when he questioned the safety of Covid vaccines and the official narratives of the virus’s origins.With the centrist group No Labels announcing on April 4 that it would not run a presidential ticket, Mr. Kennedy is the most prominent independent or third-party presence in the 2024 race. Here’s what to know about him, his supporters and how President Biden’s and Mr. Trump’s campaigns are approaching him.What party is R.F.K. Jr. affiliated with?Mr. Kennedy is running as an independent, so he is not affiliated with an established political party — he is not even, technically speaking, a “third-party candidate.” In keeping with his family’s political legacy, Mr. Kennedy was a lifelong Democrat, and when he entered the race in April 2023, he sought to challenge Mr. Biden for the party’s nomination. Six months later, he announced that he would run as an independent, saying the Democrats had corruptly blocked his efforts.He has flirted with the Libertarian Party, which is on the ballot in about three dozen states. If he were to join its ticket, his efforts to get on states’ ballots would become much simpler.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More