Kanye West Announces 2020 Presidential Run
On the Fourth of July, Ye took to Twitter to make a big announcement–he’s running for president in 2020.
His announcement was met with mixed reactions. Elon Musk was among those who said Kanye has his vote. “You have my full support!” tweeted the Tesla CEO, while Mark Cuban added, “If there was Rank Choice voting available and Kanye West was on the ballot with Joe Biden and Donald Trump, I would have Kanye West ahead of Donald Trump.”
Kanye first announced his plans to run for president in 2020 while on stage at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards before delaying his run to 2024 to allow President Trump a second term.
In October 2018, he met with Trump at the White House to discuss criminal justice reform. “Trump is on his hero’s journey right now,” said Ye during their meeting in the Oval Office. “And he might not have expected to have a crazy motherfu**er like Kanye West run up and support, but best believe we are going to make America great.”
Ye also shared his political aspirations during the Fast Company Innovation Festival in November 2019. “When I run for president in 2024, we gonna definitely…” he said before being interrupted by laughter from the crowd. “What y’all laughing at? We would create so many jobs! I’m not going to run, I’m going to walk. When you see headlines saying Kanye’s crazy—one in three African Americans are in jail and all the celebrities are in jail also because they can’t say nothing, they got no opinion, they’re so scared!”
But it may be too late for him to enter the 2020 race. West has reportedly yet to register as a candidate to get on state election ballots and has already missed the deadline for states including Indiana, New York, and Texas.