Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, personally delivered paperwork to the Texas secretary of state’s office this week and claimed in a video that the independent presidential candidate had gathered “far beyond the number of signatures” necessary to place him on the ballot.
“Thank you guys so much. This is so meaningful,” Shanahan said while seated inside a vehicle, waiting for Kennedy to arrive. “This is the path to democracy in this country.” She was holding a box that she said contained signatures gathered by volunteers on Kennedy’s behalf.
His presence on the ballot in November is not yet official, matching his status in several other states. As of last week, Kennedy was confirmed to appear on the ballot in Utah, Hawaii, Delaware, California, and Michigan, with six other states still pending.
ADVERTISEMENT
The candidate—known for his controversial, and at times conspiratorial, public health statements—is polling at around 10 percent nationally, according to poll averages compiled by FiveThirtyEight.
Shanahan has made few public campaign appearances. A story published on May 4 by the Washington Post revealed that she had yet to attend any in-person events. The story also noted that some of Kennedy’s own supporters did not know much about her.
This month, The Daily Beast published an extensive profile on Shanahan that sought to answer many of those questions, documenting her meteoric ascent from law school graduate to small-time startup founder to the wife of Google founder Sergey Brin. Her divorce, which was finalized last spring, became the subject of extensive media attention and likely left her with hundreds of millions of dollars in assets—a portion of which she has already funneled into Kennedy’s campaign.
Shanahan said she was “hurt” by the story and needed to take a walk to shake it off. She claimed on X that she “pulled into a farmers market to say hello to the farmers” when a “young man” came over to cheer on her work on behalf of Kennedy, which lifted her spirits.
