Kanye is out (UPDATE: Kanye is in again)

[Left Wing]

He'll take a larger share of Trump's black voters than Biden

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

He'll take a larger share of Trump's black voters than Biden

No, he will take Southern African American Male voters away from Biden. Tim Scott and JC Watts are Black Rs

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Even assuming he's actually on the ballot anywhere:

https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1279601278595878912?s=19
https://twitter.com/MenshevikM/status/1279768929372639235?s=19

[Stranger in a strange land]

No more than 2% and even that's probably generous.

[Bomster]

I'd argue that people are not taking this seriously enough. Sure, there is very good reason to believe that this will crash and brun very fast and amount to nothing. But if he actually succeeds in putting together a team and get on the ballot in most states, then he could be a serious spoiler candidate and make no mistake about it, the candidate that he would hurt would be Joe Biden. Having said that, I do believe that after four years of the disaster that has been the Trump presidency, there is very little appetite for another dimwit narcissistic celebrity candidate.

Because literally everything hurts Biden and helps Trump, atleast according to us.

Setting aside the fact that it is now implausible in most states for him to get on the ballot, what evidence do you have that 'the candidate that he would hurt would be Joe Biden'?

[Battista Minola 1616]

Going from previous third party bids, he would probably take a share of the Black vote that is between one third and one half of his share of the total vote. I'm not sure Kanye's race will have any influence. By the way he would likely win more Black Republicans than Black Democrats.

By the way, why is he doing this? Wasn't he a Trump stan? A third-party bid seems a good way to help Trump lose.

[Upstater]

Big yikes from me.

Perhaps a night of sleep will help you?

A night of sleep helped me a little.

[Oryxslayer]

Going from previous third party bids, he would probably take a share of the Black vote that is between one third and one half of his share of the total vote. I'm not sure Kanye's race will have any influence. By the way he would likely win more Black Republicans than Black Democrats.

By the way, why is he doing this? Wasn't he a Trump stan? A third-party bid seems a good way to help Trump lose.

He's doing it to promote his new music and then will drop out. He's done this sort of thing before. I'm old enough to remember when Kid Rock ran for Michigan senate and then recused himself after dropping his album.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Going from previous third party bids, he would probably take a share of the Black vote that is between one third and one half of his share of the total vote. I'm not sure Kanye's race will have any influence. By the way he would likely win more Black Republicans than Black Democrats.

By the way, why is he doing this? Wasn't he a Trump stan? A third-party bid seems a good way to help Trump lose.

He's doing it to promote his new music and then will drop out. He's done this sort of thing before. I'm old enough to remember when Kid Rock ran for Michigan senate and then recused himself after dropping his album.

But Kid Rock talked about a hypothetical candidacy in July of the year before, not July of the election year. This sounds different, even though I'm now inclined to believe it's kind of a stunt.
And also, what does Elon Musk have to do with Kanye?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I made a breakdown here:

Already Missed
Arizona (State deadline is not until September, but requires an Federal Elections Commission filing by 6/14.)
Maine (6/1 deadline)
North Carolina (3/3 deadline, also an FEC deadline of 6/30)
Texas (state and FEC deadline of 5/8)

Very Unlikely
Florida (132,781 signatures [!] required by 7/15)
Colorado (no signature requirement, only a filing fee, but he's very unlikely to be able to meet the requirements to file with the FEC by that deadline of 7/10.)
Georgia (currently no signature requirement after a federal judge struck down the previous high requirement and the legislature did not revise the law, only a filing fee. But the FEC deadline is 7/11.)
Michigan (30,000 signatures by 7/16, with at least 100 from half of the state's congressional districts.)
Nevada (9608 signatures by 8/14, but also an FEC filing deadline of 7/7)

The rest
Iowa (1500 signatures by 8/14)
Minnesota (2000 signatures 8/18)
New Hampshire (2000 signatures by 9/12)
Ohio (5000 signatures by 8/5)
Pennsylvania (5000 signatures by 8/3)
Wisconsin (2000 signatures by 8/4)

None of those are exactly impossible, but might be a heavy lift for a campaign that officially does not even exist yet and is unlikely to recruit the sort of organizing talent needed to do the canvassing needed to collect signatures, especially during a pandemic.

The single easiest state would probably be Louisiana, which requires either 5000 signatures or a far easier $500 fee by 8/21. Colorado and Georgia would be pretty easy if he files with the FEC in a week, but don't hold your breath on that...or ever.

[American2020]

So AZ and NC seem secure for Biden.

[The Mikado]

States where the filing deadline has already passed for an independent candidate:

Indiana
Maine
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
Texas

Well, that's not too bad, right? That's only six states!

Thing is, there's a bunch more in July, including some with extremely high signatures. 10,000 signatures by July 15th for South Carolina. 132,781(!) signatures by July 15th for Florida. 30,000 signatures by July 16th for Michigan.

Apparently, NY changed its deadline when they delayed the primaries.

Updated NY filing deadline is July 30th with a 30k signature requirement, so Kanye West could in fact make the ballot in NY.

[CookieDamage]

States where the filing deadline has already passed for an independent candidate:

Indiana
Maine
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
Texas

Well, that's not too bad, right? That's only six states!

Thing is, there's a bunch more in July, including some with extremely high signatures. 10,000 signatures by July 15th for South Carolina. 132,781(!) signatures by July 15th for Florida. 30,000 signatures by July 16th for Michigan.

Apparently, NY changed its deadline when they delayed the primaries.

Updated NY filing deadline is July 30th with a 30k signature requirement, so Kanye West could in fact make the ballot in NY.

a crucially important swing state

[CookieDamage]

States also have write in requirements too.

[The Mikado]

States where the filing deadline has already passed for an independent candidate:

Indiana
Maine
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
Texas

Well, that's not too bad, right? That's only six states!

Thing is, there's a bunch more in July, including some with extremely high signatures. 10,000 signatures by July 15th for South Carolina. 132,781(!) signatures by July 15th for Florida. 30,000 signatures by July 16th for Michigan.

Apparently, NY changed its deadline when they delayed the primaries.

Updated NY filing deadline is July 30th with a 30k signature requirement, so Kanye West could in fact make the ballot in NY.

a crucially important swing state

I'm assuming if Kanye ran, his goal would just be to get as many votes as possible to flex his muscles a bit rather than to try to actually win, and there's a lot of votes in NY.

[pppolitics]

What did you find this information?

It doesn't seem to match the information from FEC's website

https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2020pdates.pdf

[President Johnson]

Why is this obvious joke from a joke "candidate" any serious attention? Even if he tries to run, he will go nowhere. Let alone obstacles to get on the ballot in a significant number of states, especially within a very short period of time.

[DaleCooper]

I'd argue that people are not taking this seriously enough. Sure, there is very good reason to believe that this will crash and brun very fast and amount to nothing. But if he actually succeeds in putting together a team and get on the ballot in most states, then he could be a serious spoiler candidate and make no mistake about it, the candidate that he would hurt would be Joe Biden. Having said that, I do believe that after four years of the disaster that has been the Trump presidency, there is very little appetite for another dimwit narcissistic celebrity candidate.

Setting aside the fact that it is now implausible in most states for him to get on the ballot, what evidence do you have that 'the candidate that he would hurt would be Joe Biden'?

To be fair, polling data indicates that Democrats are hurt by independent candidates far more than Republicans. One wouldn't think that Justin Amash would hurt Ds more than Rs, but he absolutely would have. I'm sure it's the same with Kanye West.

The real issue here is that there is no feasible chance of him getting on even a handful of state ballots, and that's assuming he was actually serious about this and willing to invest tens of millions of dollars which he almost certainly isn't. I read that he just released the first single for his new album a couple days ago, so this is probably either a publicity stunt for his album or a manic episode.

[Hammy]

I'd argue that people are not taking this seriously enough. Sure, there is very good reason to believe that this will crash and brun very fast and amount to nothing. But if he actually succeeds in putting together a team and get on the ballot in most states, then he could be a serious spoiler candidate and make no mistake about it, the candidate that he would hurt would be Joe Biden. Having said that, I do believe that after four years of the disaster that has been the Trump presidency, there is very little appetite for another dimwit narcissistic celebrity candidate.

Setting aside the fact that it is now implausible in most states for him to get on the ballot, what evidence do you have that 'the candidate that he would hurt would be Joe Biden'?

To be fair, polling data indicates that Democrats are hurt by independent candidates far more than Republicans. One wouldn't think that Justin Amash would hurt Ds more than Rs, but he absolutely would have. I'm sure it's the same with Kanye West.

The real issue here is that there is no feasible chance of him getting on even a handful of state ballots, and that's assuming he was actually serious about this and willing to invest tens of millions of dollars which he almost certainly isn't. I read that he just released the first single for his new album a couple days ago, so this is probably either a publicity stunt for his album or a manic episode.

I'll have to strongly disagree with the bold--Amash was bound to hurt Biden more than Trump because Biden is leading partly on the backs of centrist voters and disaffected Republicans--many of who would rather vote for somebody closer to the center (from their standpoint) than a Democrat.

[DaleCooper]

I'd argue that people are not taking this seriously enough. Sure, there is very good reason to believe that this will crash and brun very fast and amount to nothing. But if he actually succeeds in putting together a team and get on the ballot in most states, then he could be a serious spoiler candidate and make no mistake about it, the candidate that he would hurt would be Joe Biden. Having said that, I do believe that after four years of the disaster that has been the Trump presidency, there is very little appetite for another dimwit narcissistic celebrity candidate.

Setting aside the fact that it is now implausible in most states for him to get on the ballot, what evidence do you have that 'the candidate that he would hurt would be Joe Biden'?

To be fair, polling data indicates that Democrats are hurt by independent candidates far more than Republicans. One wouldn't think that Justin Amash would hurt Ds more than Rs, but he absolutely would have. I'm sure it's the same with Kanye West.

The real issue here is that there is no feasible chance of him getting on even a handful of state ballots, and that's assuming he was actually serious about this and willing to invest tens of millions of dollars which he almost certainly isn't. I read that he just released the first single for his new album a couple days ago, so this is probably either a publicity stunt for his album or a manic episode.

I'll have to strongly disagree with the bold--Amash was bound to hurt Biden more than Trump because Biden is leading partly on the backs of centrist voters and disaffected Republicans--many of who would rather vote for somebody closer to the center (from their standpoint) than a Democrat.

Of course he would have, but his policy is fringe, radical rightwing nonsense. It's an example of how the policies of these third-party candidates don't really matter all that much when it comes to who they take votes from.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What did you find this information?

It doesn't seem to match the information from FEC's website

https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2020pdates.pdf

https://heavy.com/news/2020/07/kanye-west-file-for-president-state-deadline

[Bomster]

Like realistically, does he even have the time or resources to actually start a campaign? Is it all just publicity for his new album? What the actual hell is going on? I swear it feels like everything hurts Biden and helps Trump. That’s how little faith we have. I’ve certainly contributed to that... I just wish I had a little more faith...

[MR DARK BRANDON]

No

[Galeel]

He's not actually gonna run. This is just another one of his antics. Also if he did it would have no real effect on the election.

[pppolitics]

I'd argue that people are not taking this seriously enough. Sure, there is very good reason to believe that this will crash and brun very fast and amount to nothing. But if he actually succeeds in putting together a team and get on the ballot in most states, then he could be a serious spoiler candidate and make no mistake about it, the candidate that he would hurt would be Joe Biden. Having said that, I do believe that after four years of the disaster that has been the Trump presidency, there is very little appetite for another dimwit narcissistic celebrity candidate.

Setting aside the fact that it is now implausible in most states for him to get on the ballot, what evidence do you have that 'the candidate that he would hurt would be Joe Biden'?

To be fair, polling data indicates that Democrats are hurt by independent candidates far more than Republicans. One wouldn't think that Justin Amash would hurt Ds more than Rs, but he absolutely would have. I'm sure it's the same with Kanye West.

The real issue here is that there is no feasible chance of him getting on even a handful of state ballots, and that's assuming he was actually serious about this and willing to invest tens of millions of dollars which he almost certainly isn't. I read that he just released the first single for his new album a couple days ago, so this is probably either a publicity stunt for his album or a manic episode.

No, Biden would be hurt by certain independent candidates, specifically, ones that are anywhere from centrist to far left.

Thanks to his association with Trump, Kanye West certainly wouldn't be perceived as one of those.