Rapper Kanye West’s U.S. Presidential Bid Gains Ground in Minnesota
Rapper Kanye West's U.S. presidential bid is graining ground after he successfully earned a spot on the ballot in Minnesota for this November's election.
West, who is running as an independent candidate, will appear as the seventh presidential candidate on the Minnesota ballot as well as his running mate Michelle Tidball, who is a preacher in Wyoming.
Since announcing his presidential bid in July, West has secured ballot spots in the states of Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont and Tennessee.
However, it is still far off to think of Kim Kardashian as the next First Lady as her rapper husband continues to struggle to put his name on the ballots of other states. This week alone, he missed out having his name on the ballots in Missouri and Wyoming.
Wyoming is ironically not only the home state of West's running mate, but the rapper also owns a ranch in the state.
West has already missed out having his name on the ballot of 30 other states. He failed to make the deadline in 25 of those 30 states while in the other states, he failed to qualify by not being able to submit the required number of registered voters' valid signatures on a petition.
In Ohio, for example, where West needed 5,000 valid signatures of registered voters, the rapper submitted a petition that had 14,886 signatures. However, upon evaluation, there was a discrepancy between the documents submitted to the office of the Secretary of State and those used to circulate part-petitions, thus his petition was denied.
Nevertheless, West earning a spot on the Minnesota ballot is a gain for his presidential candidacy because the state is considered as one the many election battlegrounds where President Donald Trump could hold sway. Hillary Clinton only won by 1.5 votes in Minnesota in 2016, as reported by The Hill.
West, a Nuisance to Joe Biden's Candidacy
The AP News has reported that West has previously pledged his support for Trump and his candidacy is largely seen as the Republican's ploy to take away votes from Democrat candidate Joe Biden.
West is reportedly being helped by strategists of the Grand Old Party in his campaign. The GOP is a nickname of the Republican Party. And, in some states, operatives of the Republican Party are working to get West on the ballot, according to the USA Today.
However, West has failed to land his name on the ballot in Wisconsin where Trump won in the 2016 election.
Also, West does not seem to have the support of the entire Black community basing on the recently released results of a national poll which showed that the billionaire rapper will only gather about 2 percent among Black voters as well as from likely voters overall.
Nevertheless, the Democrats are worried that the 43-year-old West could influence the young Black voters to vote for him instead of Biden as his presidential candidacy continues to gain media attention.
While Kanye West has not been coy about drawing votes away from Biden as he himself confirmed it, Trump's campaign party has denied any involvement whatsoever with the rapper's candidacy.