Billionaire artist and footwear tycoon Kanye West is never far from the spotlight. Most recently, his alleged presidential bid has made headlines. As he announced on his twitter on July 4th to the tune of 1.2 million likes and the approval of the likes of Elon Musk, Kim Kardashian, and Mark Cuban, West has stated that he intends to run for president.
Wait… but wasn’t he pro-Trump?
Up until recently, Kanye was a MAGA hat-touting supporter of President Trump. However, that relationship seems to have since soured. In a recent interview with Forbes, Kanye cites Trump hiding in the presidential bunker during the recent BLM protests in DC as the reason for the newfound discord between the two former friends.
Another report has also claimed that Kanye was never actually a Trump supporter - he was only faking it to convince Trump to pardon some of Kanye’s incarcerated friends.
Other prevalent theories that explain the strife include Kanye’s discontent with Trump’s handling of the recent BLM movements and protests and one that alleges that Kanye is still working with Trump; implying that West is only running to steal some of the Black vote from presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who has surged ahead of Trump in most recent polls.
Is he actually going to run?
In the aforementioned Forbes article, Kanye confirmed that he is fully committed to mounting a presidential bid. Despite reports of Kanye dropping out of the race on July 14th, as of July 16th, Kanye finally filed with the Federal Election Commission, and has already managed to make it onto the ballot in Oklahoma.
Some people have also submitted highly entertaining parody declarations of candidacy to the FEC, including Kanye "Deez Nutz" West.
It remains to be seen whether Kanye will actually run, or whether the campaign will solely serve as publicity for his upcoming albums.
What are his actual political beliefs?
In the same highly informative interview with Forbes, Kanye outlines part of his political platform. While he states that he is still in the process of developing some of his platform, his beliefs are largely influenced by his faith.
He is reportedly distrustful of vaccines, comparing them to the mark of the beast.
He has an America-first vision, and is still working on developing, or in his own words “Innovating”, his foreign policy. However, he has implied that he is willing to work with China.
He plans to run the US like Wakanda from the blockbuster movie Black Panther, but what exactly that entails is unclear.
He supports the return of prayer in schools, is pro-life, and against capital punishment.
He is also against police brutality, and maintains that “police are people too”.
He also views cleaning up chemicals as another priority.
Kanye has said that he is completely fine with stealing some of the black vote from Biden and the democratic party, whose control over much of the black vote he has deemed to be akin to white supremacy.
Additionally, Kanye has stated that he plans on running as a representative from the Birthday Party, with “Kanye West, YES” as the slogan for his campaign, and Wyoming Pastor Michelle Tidball as his VP. Moreover, he has also suggested that he is considering Elon Musk as a possible head of the space program if Kanye gets elected.
In the past, Kanye has also talked about some of his other policies, but it is unclear whether he still believes in the views expressed then.
In response to the Forbes article, Elon Musk reportedly tweeted “We may have more differences of opinion than I anticipated”. However, since then he has deleted the tweet and continues to support Kanye’s presidential bid, although he has advised Kanye to focus on 2024 rather than the upcoming 2020 elections.
Does he actually have a shot at winning?
Now for the fun part. **Open disclaimer, I am by no means a political analyst - analyzing people’s behaviors and the trends driving them is merely a passion of mine. **
Kanye faces a steep uphill battle to get elected. As a third party candidate (without the backing of either the Republican or Democratic Party), some of the main issues plaguing his campaign, as with all other third party campaigns, is visibility and fundraising. Luckily for Kanye, his fame as an artist and the current hype surrounding his campaign should help with both of those problems.
Let’s look to the past. In Previous Elections -
2016: 5.1% - 3rd Party candidates’ overall percentage of the popular vote.
Libertarian party candidate Gary Johnson won the most of the batch, at 3.3% with 4.5 millions votes roughly.
Kanye’s hyper-christian views would best match with the current Constitution Party.
Darrell Castle, the representative from that party, won approximately 0.13% of the popular vote with 178,000 votes, and as high as 1.3% in Alaska in 2016. He was allowed to appear on the ballot in 24 states, and as a write-in candidate in another 22 states.
1968: The last time a 3rd party candidate actually won a state - Democratic leaning Independent George Wallace won 5 states in the South, and as a result, Republican candidate Nixon won the election.
1912: Teddy Roosevelt (After already having served 2 terms as a Republican President) made his own party to contest the Republican Party candidate, William Taft.
This is semi-similar to this Kanye situation in terms of the third party candidate being rather influential. Teddy Roosevelt ended up splitting the republican vote, allowing the democratic candidate to get an easy victory, with 435 electoral votes.
My Predictions:
Politically - The majority of Constitution Party Voters will support Kanye, if he can appeal to them in time before the election.
For the memes - A little less than 35% of the voters in the 18-24 cohort will also support Kanye simply for the entertainment value.
Robbery of Black votes? - As far as stealing the black vote goes, I do not believe his campaign will steal much from the Educated Blacks, who will likely vote for Biden anyway, but much of the less educated black community cohort may vote for him over Biden in a show of camaraderie. As such, my prediction is the less educated black vote should be split almost equally between Kanye, Trump, and Biden.
First Third Party electoral votes since 1968? - Kanye may win a couple deep South states, especially those that are less educated and more religious. Even if he doesn’t win any in 2020 given the current situation, he will for sure win several states in 2024. I think Southern states with an especially high black population relative to their overall population are the most likely candidates to vote Birthday. Even then, many especially religious voters can be rather “dogmatic” in their beliefs, and thus may be less likely to stray from the well-established two party system.
Q: How will his late arrival impact his chances? -
A: Negatively. Kanye has thrown his hat into the ring rather late, but he does have media hype surrounding him. Will he be able to raise the money or get the signatures before the deadlines to get on the ballot though? Moreover, I think he would require more time to be able to connect with largely Trump supporting conservative christian voters enough to get them to support him, so his late start doesn’t bode well for allowing him to build his base.
So far, deadlines in Indiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Texas have already passed.
If he’s not fast, Kanye will lose out on several more states - Florida, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, NJ, NY, OK, and SC.
However, he is reportedly consulting experts to see if exceptions could be made, given the current coronavirus situation.
He should be able to get onto most states as a write-in candidate.
Would people actually vote for him as a write-on? Probably not as much as normal candidates, just given the extra effort involved.
Q: What would have to happen for Kanye to win the election?
A: Quite a bit. If all of these occurred, Kanye may be able to pull off a slight win:
Kanye would have to be able to use COVID-19 as an extenuating circumstance to get on the ballot in 40+ states, which is a reasonable possibility.
Kanye would require a majority of the black vote, which I don’t necessarily see happening. I think roughly 25-35% of the black vote is a reasonable ceiling for the West campaign, as given his largely conservative and Christian beliefs will likely rub many of the college educated Blacks the wrong way, not to mention the power that the tradition of generations of voting Democrat holds over much of the black community. However, if Kanye plays his cards right he may be able to capitalize on the convictions of the BLM protestors, which could boost this to roughly 30-40% of the black vote.
Kanye would require probably upwards of 60% of the 18-30 demographic, which could be possible, given that many younger people may vote for Kanye for the memes. However, in my past experience from school elections, while candidates that are considered “meme candidates” end up performing rather well, they earn at max 45% of the vote, as they tend to rub the serious voters the wrong way, even if the voters' views align with Kanye. Once again, I think 25-35% of the vote from this demographic is a reasonable estimate.
Kanye would also have to win much of the vote from religious voters, at least 40%. This is possible, given that they are likely to agree with Kanye’s policies. However, the main issue for Kanye here is getting them to switch their opinions as they are likely Trump voters, especially given that he will not have long to actually campaign before the election.
Kanye would have to win a majority of the farther-right voters and the “never-trumpers”. Of the four keys to victory for Kanye, this is the most likely. Given Trump’s spending on stimulus because of coronavirus, it is possible that many voters who want as little government involvement as possible will flock to the Kanye camp for a change of pace. Similarly, many republican “never-trumpers” are likely to view Kanye as a better representation of their views than Biden. I think 45-50% of these voters may end up voting for Kanye.
The Most Likely Scenario: In all honesty, I don’t think the people screaming that Kanye’s campaign is an obvious ruse by the Trump campaign to steal the Black vote from Biden to allow Trump to be reelected is quite accurate. In fact, if this was the Trump campaign's plan, they'll be in for a surprise; I think Kanye's campaign will end up hurting Trump more than it helps him, especially if Kanye manages to win some of the Deep South. Even if Kanye doesn’t, Trump is already polling under Biden in key swing states:
*note: the assumption here is that the majority of these are Christian, given that over 92% of the religious people in the US practice Christianity. However, roughly 30% of the US consists of highly religious people of other religions and the atheists are highly unlikely to vote for Kanye.
Michigan: (16 votes)
Highly Religious 53%
Black Population: 15%
Wisconsin: (10 votes)
Highly Religious: 45%
Black Population: 8%
Population between 19-25: 9%
Pennsylvania: (20 votes)
Highly Religious: 53%
Black Population: 13%
Population from 19-25: 8%
Florida: (29 votes)
Highly Religious: 54%
Black Population: 18%
Population between 19-25: 8%
Arizona: (11 votes)
Highly Religious: 53%
Black Population: 6%
Population between 19-25: 9%
North Carolina: (15 votes)
Highly Religious: 65%
Black Population: 24%
Population between 19-25: 11%
Of these states, which total to 101 electoral votes, Kanye’s base will be especially influential in North Carolina. However, in all 6 of these key swing states, the relatively high proportion of extremely religious people has the potential to wreck Trump’s reelection aspirations.
My prediction is that this election will follow a similar path to that of the election of 1912, and the election of 1968: in both of these, the mainstream candidate with the same political leanings as the influential 3rd party candidate lost the election by a significant margin. Given Trump’s low polling numbers already, Kanye’s campaign threatens to throw a wrench into an already precarious situation for the Trump campaign. All things considered, Biden should win the election by a fair margin.
TL;DR: Kanye is running for President for the Birthday Party. His views are largely shaped by his faith. His base is likely to consist of young voters, black voters, highly religious voters, and never-trumpers. While it is unlikely that Kanye will win the election, his campaign is probably more likely to hurt the Trump campaign than it will help it. Biden should win the election by a fair margin.
For more info and where I got my info:
Some Background on Kanye:
Other stuff:
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