What exactly is Kanye West doing with this 2020 presidential bid? He’s already missed the deadline to be on the ballot in lots and lots of states, and yet reports keep coming out that he’s sliding in just under deadlines in other states.
Does he seriously have aspirations of beating Donald Trump and Joe Biden and securing his position as the next president of the United States? If so, he has a nigh impossible task ahead of him.
Nevertheless, the rapper-turned-politician told Forbes that he was “walking,” rather than running for president. “Walking … to win.”
The problem is that he’s not going to win. He’s already missed enough states that it is literally impossible for him to get to 270 electoral votes that way, meaning his only hope is write-in votes — and that’s just never going to happen.
When it was explained to him that he had no shot of winning, and thus was acting as a spoiler — most likely on behalf of President Trump as he’s believed to more likely siphon votes away from Biden — West said, “I’m not going to argue with you.”
He then followed that up with an inexplicable declaration, “Jesus is King.”
A few hours after the interview went live, West took to Twitter with a seeming response denying that his role is to serve as a spoiler — or at least that’s not his intentional goal.
While West did not engage with Forbes in attempts to talk to him about who was helping him get on the ballots, as many media reports have stated that it is GOP-affiliated representatives, he did indicate a continuing affiliation with the Trump White House.
“I’m meeting with Betsy DeVos about the post-Covid curriculum,” he said. For his part, Trump flatly denied that he had anything to do with getting West on any ballots.
“I have nothing to do with him getting on the ballot,” he told White House reporters on Wednesday. “We’ll have to see what happens.”
As more outlets have been digging into West’s efforts to get onto the ballots state by state, they’re claiming that it appears to be Republican-led efforts to help him.
In particular, they have suggested that GOP aid is trying to get West onto the ballot in battleground states where Trump finds himself in a tight race with Biden.
The cynical theory is that this is a dastardly Republican plot to tip the election in those states toward Trump by having West and Biden split the more liberal-leaning voters. If it’s a close enough margin, even the slimmest percentage of voters swinging West’s way could give the state to Trump.
One state in particular stands out to media outlets, with NBC News suggesting Republican operatives may have helped him get on the ballot in Wisconsin, a state Trump won by only 23,000 votes in 2016. Recent polling has Biden ahead by 12 points in that state, per Deadline.
For what it’s worth, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has reported that West may not have made it in time to be on the Wisconsin ballot, after all. According to the paper, Lane Ruhland, an attorney who has worked for the state’s Republican Party, may not have gotten his paperwork filed in time.
Nevertheless, the Wisconsin Republican Party praised both Ruhland’s involvement and West joining the race in that state. “It appears that the Kanye West campaign made a smart decision by hiring an experienced election attorney,” said spokesperson Alesha Guenther, per CNN.
“We welcome Kanye West and all other candidates who qualified for ballot access to the race, and look forward to delivering Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes to President Trump.”
“It’s hard not to feel like Republican operatives are using a mentally ill, very famous rapper who is not going to be president because they think for some reason that it’s going to take Black votes away from Joe Biden,” Democratic strategist Jesse Lehrich told NBC News.
“To the extent that people are using him for their own political gain, it’s pretty gross and I hope he gets whatever help he needs.”
West is reportedly in the midst of a bipolar manic episode, according to TMZ and other outlets. His marriage to Kim Kardashian is also reportedly in trouble after he spoke candidly about them discussing abortion while pregnant with North at an erratic campaign rally in South Carolina, a state he subsequently missed the deadline for and won’t appear on the ballot.
West is currently on the ballot in Illinois, Oklahoma and Vermont. While he’s also successfully submitted in Arkansas, Colorado, Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin, a final ruling is pending verification of his signatures.
He’s already missed deadlines in several key states, including New York, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Maine, South Dakota and the aforementioned South Carolina. Deadlines for several other states are looming.
