Kanye Says He’s Still Running for President. Here’s the Brutally Tough Math on Why He Can’t Win.
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
Kanye West surprised many when he tweeted that he was running for president, and downright shocked people when he actually filed a Statement of Candidacy with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) and paid the fee to get on the ballot in Oklahoma. But if he’s truly serious, what does it actually take to run an independent presidential campaign? Let’s break down the numbers, and paint just how uphill the path forward is for Kanye 2020.
President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden have locked in the nominations for the two major parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, respectively. West filed his Statement of Candidacy on July 16, 2020, declaring his party affiliation to be “BDY,” which he later identified as the “Birthday Party.”
Federal law regulates many aspects of running for president, but the individual states still have broad powers to determine the rules for getting on their ballots, and it’s a wildly variable hodgepodge of laws, with a different set of rules for every state. Some states require signatures on a petition, some require the candidate to pay a fee, and some offer candidates a choice between those two options.
In order to win a presidential election, a candidate must win the votes of at least 270 out of the 538 electors in the U.S. electoral college. These electors are, again, awarded based on the laws in each state and calculated from the results of the popular vote. In the majority of states, the popular vote results assign the electors in a winner-take-all manner. For example, a presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in my home state of Florida would get all 29 of our electors.
In Maine and Nebraska, two electors are assigned from the statewide popular vote and the remaining electors are assigned based on the vote in each congressional district.
West has spent the past few days promoting his effort to collect 10,000 signatures to get on the ballot in South Carolina, and held a rally there earlier today.
If you’re a voter in South Carolina, please sign this petition to place me on the ballot Sponsored by Ye 2020 https://t.co/ZURvTEW9ee pic.twitter.com/Z9tdq0eG9c
— ye (@kanyewest) July 18, 2020
Hi guys please sign up to put me on the ballot in South Carolina at any of these locations You can also sign up at the websitehttps://t.co/ZURvTEW9ee pic.twitter.com/3rV5ujExPm
— ye (@kanyewest) July 18, 2020
It’s a bizarre effort. Not because 10,000 signatures is an insurmountable obstacle — that’s a challenging but not impossible number to collect in a few days — but because the deadline in South Carolina passes very soon, and West does not seem to be making a sufficient effort in the dozens of other states he needs.
According to the South Carolina Election Commission’s website, the deadline is tomorrow, July 20 (the deadline is normally July 15, but has been extended five days due to a state of emergency declared by the governor).
Besides South Carolina, several other states’ deadlines have already passed or are passing within the next few days.
Oklahoma, highlighted above, is the only state where West met the requirements to get on the ballot before the deadline passed, paying a $35,000 fee. The Oklahoma State Election Board confirmed on Twitter that West had qualified for the ballot.
Independent presidential candidate Kanye West has qualified for the General Election ballot in Oklahoma. (Today is Oklahoma’s deadline for Independent & Unrecognized Party presidential candidates to file statements of candidacy with their petitions or filing fee.)
— Oklahoma State Election Board (@OKelections) July 15, 2020
This means that a total of 114 electoral college votes are impossible for West to win, and another 86 will be lost by the end of this month — a total of 200 electoral college votes gone — unless West successfully organizes efforts to collect tens of thousands of signatures in five different states.
Then comes August, when another 31 states’ deadlines will run out. California, the largest state with 55 electoral votes, demands a whopping 196,694 signatures by August 7.
By August 1, there will be only 338 electoral votes remaining possible for West, leaving very little room for error. The moment that Trump and Biden secure enough states to win 68 electoral votes, it’s game over.
In other words, in order to actually have a viable campaign, West will need to immediately hire hundreds of petition gatherers and other field operatives, in addition to lawyers, in dozens of states. Otherwise, the number of electoral college votes remaining on the table will drop below the 270 threshold during the month of August.
Tweeting at his 30 million Twitter followers to sign a petition for one little state won’t cut it. West cannot viably run for president unless he is simultaneously organizing petition drives in dozens of states, starting this week.
Our current system is not structured to make it easy for an independent presidential candidate, and that is not going to change this year. It doesn’t matter if West is a celebrity or how much money he has, neither the FEC nor the various states’ election laws allow him any shortcuts or exemptions.
A recent poll that included West among the possible candidates showed only 2 percent of respondents supporting him — not enough to win any electoral college votes, but certainly enough to play spoiler in this age of razor thin elections and recounts.
If West tweets tomorrow with a list of field staff present and on the ground collecting signatures in a few dozen states, take his campaign seriously. Otherwise, the Kanye 2020 campaign will be relegated to just another weird footnote to American political history.
Perhaps it is fitting that searching for “kanye west” on the FEC website brings up a total of three names: West himself, “Kanye Deez Nutz West, ” and Kanye West Gay Fish, presumably based on a 2009 South Park episode that parodied West.
That’s two joke candidates. We’ll know in a few weeks if it’s three.
Screenshot from FEC.gov dated July 19, 2020.
