Robert F Kennedy Jr picks Nicole Shanahan as running mate for White House bid

Robert F Kennedy Jr has chosen Nicole Shanahan to be his vice presidential pick as he mounts an independent White House bid that has spooked national Democrats.

Ms Shanahan, 38, is a California lawyer and philanthropist who has never held elected office.

She leads the Bia-Echo Foundation, an organisation she founded to direct money towards issues including women’s reproductive science, criminal justice reform and environmental causes.

Mr Kennedy, a former Democrat, made the announcement in Oakland, California.

“Nicole and I both left the Democratic Party,” he said.

“Our values didn’t change. The Democratic Party did.”

Without the backing of a party, he faces an arduous task to get on the ballot, with varying rules across the 50 states.

Mr Kennedy is picking a running mate now because about half of the states require him to designate one before he can apply for ballot access.

In advance of the event in Oakland, he and his aides circulated the names of several contenders, including celebrities with no experience in politics.

Two hours before Mr Kennedy’s rally was scheduled to begin at a performing arts venue, a handful of supporters were lined up outside.

Broken-down cars, discarded bicycles, tents and all manner of household goods took up the sidewalk and a park directly outside, a visual reminder of the housing crisis that has plagued California.

Dozens of men in black suits made up a heavy security presence for a candidate who has loudly complained that he has not been granted protection from the US Secret Service.

Mr Kennedy’s campaign has spent millions of dollars with the security company owned by Gavin de Becker, who has been a major donor to his campaign and associated super PAC.

Sarah Morris, a Kennedy supporter from Olympia, Washington – who flew to Oakland for the rally, said Mr Kennedy should pick somebody who would “complement him well and balance him out”.

“It would be nice to see a VP who leans a little more right than he does,” said the 47-year-old real estate agent. “I just hope he picks a good partner. I hope he doesn’t pick somebody that’s polarising.”

A list of speakers includes Angela Stanton-King, a woman pardoned by then-president Donald Trump for her role in a car theft ring that led to a 2004 federal conspiracy conviction and two years in prison; Metta World Peace, the NBA all-star player formerly known as Ron Artest; and Dr Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford Medical School professor who questioned the efficacy of lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic and was part of Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ presidential launch event last year.

Mr Kennedy’s campaign has spooked Democrats, who are fighting third-party options that could draw support from President Joe Biden and help Donald Trump.

As they head into a 2020 rematch, Mr Biden and Mr Trump are broadly unpopular with the US public and will compete for the votes of people who are not enthusiastic about either of them.

Without the backing of a party, Mr Kennedy faces an arduous task to get on the ballot, with varying rules across the 50 states. He is picking a running mate now because about half of the states require him to designate one before he can apply for ballot access.

The requirement is already bedeviling Mr Kennedy’s ballot access effort in Nevada, where Democratic Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said in a March 7 letter to independent candidates that they must nominate a vice presidential candidate before collecting signatures.

The letter came days after Mr Kennedy’s campaign announced he had collected enough signatures in the state. If Mr Aguilar’s opinion survives a likely legal challenge, Mr Kennedy will have to start again in collecting just over 10,000 signatures in the state.

“This is the epitome of corruption,” said Paul Rossi, a Kennedy campaign lawyer, in a statement Monday, accusing Mr Aguilar of doing the bidding of the Democratic National Committee.

Mr Kennedy has secured access to the ballot in Utah. He and an allied super PAC, American Values 2024, say they have collected enough signatures to qualify in several other states, including swing states Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, but election officials there have not yet signed off.

Mr Kennedy is a descendant of a storied Democratic family that includes his father, Robert F Kennedy, who was a US senator, attorney general and presidential candidate, and his uncle former president John F Kennedy.

He began his campaign as a primary challenge to Mr Biden but last autumn said he would run as an independent instead.

Mr Kennedy was a teenager when his father, known as RFK, was assassinated during his own presidential campaign in 1968.

RFK Jr built a reputation of his own as an activist, author and lawyer who fought for environmental causes such as clean water.