With just over 100 days left until the presidential election, on July 4 Kanye West announced that he was running for president. He announced his candidacy in a tweet, and has so far appeared on Oklahoma’s voting ballot. West has yet to comment on his campaign strategy or his motivations behind running for the presidency.
Since the announcement of West’s campaign he has tweeted a website where you can sign a petition to get himself on South Carolina’s ballot. West missed the cut off to be placed on South Carolina’s ballot which is why he is asking his fans to support him by signing the petition.
There has been speculation whether or not the rapper was going to be pulled from the race because he had registered to vote in Wyoming, but since he has filed with the FEC and is officially on the Oklahoma ballot the speculation has faded.
West has polled at 2% since he announced that he was running for president, and it seems as though he has taken votes from President Trump. Trump was polling at 40% but has since dropped to 39% and former Vice President Joe Biden was polling at 48% as of July 9.
After West’s candidacy was announced he spiked controversy because of his clothing company. The famous brand Yeezy, received millions of dollars in loans from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) even though West himself is a billionaire and the company worth a billion dollars. Other businesses such as Shake Shack has returned the funds that they received because the money was meant to be for small businesses.
Kanye West has shared that he is running in a new political party named “The Birthday Party,” and that his running mate will be a preacher from Wyoming. In one interview he commented on some of his values where he shared contradictory values, some very right winged opinions such as being pro-life and some very left winged opinions such as being against the death penalty. Along with bringing attention to the lack of education of Black History in America, he also said he wants to bring God back into schools. West has also said that he wants to model the country off of the fictional land of Wakanda from the movie Black Panther.
West has received support from the likes, of Chance the Rapper who said he would trust him more than Biden. However, Black Eyed Peas artist Will.I.Am says that Kanye West running for the presidency can be a very dangerous thing to play with.
Soon after Kanye tweeted to his fans to help get his petitioned signed to show up on the South Carolina ballot, he followed up with a number of tweets which appear to be about creating a new font.
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