Kanye West says he’s running for President in 2020

Almost half a decade ago, Kanye West first announced his intention to run for President in 2020, in a truly wild acceptance speech at the MTV VMAs. 

Now – after a bumpy few years, to say the least – Kanye has returned to the idea in a July 4 tweet, writing: “We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States #2020Vision.”

As Twitter users have pointed out, it’s now too late to get on the ballot as an independent candidate for President in multiple states, but that hasn’t stopped him from receiving support from multiple (alleged) billionaires: namely his own wife, Kim Kardashian West, who retweeted Kanye’s post with an American flag emoji, and ‘his boy’ Elon Musk.

Just this week, Kanye was hanging out with Musk and Grimes, posting a much-memed picture captioned: “When you go to your boys house and you’re both wearing orange.”

Of course, Kanye hasn’t been completely consistent with his intentions in the past. Multiple times – as late as November 2019 – he’s considered pushing his presidential run back to 2024. It’s also worth remembering that the rapper has a tenth solo studio album, God’s Country, in the works, leading some to suspect that the campaign is just a publicity stunt.

Then there’s the obvious issue of his controversial, back-and-forth support for Donald Trump since his election in 2016, which has previously seen Kanye proudly don a MAGA hat, citing their shared “dragon energy”.

Right now only one 2020 presidential candidate named Kanye West actually appears in the FEC database anyway: a Green Party candidate called “Kanye Deez Nuts West”.