Kanye West drops out of presidential race just weeks after announcing bid: 'He has realized it's not feasible'
Kanye West's bid for the presidency is over even before it began, with the rapper now out of the race for the Oval Office, according to a source close to his campaign. The Chicago native had sparked a frenzy on Independence Day when he tweeted that he would be gunning for the Commander-in-Chief, 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."
He immediately garnered the support of tech billionaire Elon Musk, who tweeted his approval to the bid in the replies to Kanye's tweet. While such a bid seemed extraordinary and implausible, the rapper did have a legal ground to stand upon. Marking an entry to a race that is set to conclude in a little over four months may have seemed futile, but Kanye was still eligible to get his name listed on the ballot as a third-party candidate in several states, including Florida and South Carolina.
Steven Kramer, an election strategist who had been hired by Kanye to ensure his name would be on the ballot, confirmed the 43-year-old was serious about his bid but has now realized it is not feasible. "He's out," Kramer told Intelligencer. "I’ll let you know what I know once I get all our stuff canceled. We had over 180 people out there today." The 180 people Kramer was referring to were campaign workers who had been tasked with going around Florida and gathering the signatures he needed to make the ballot in the state by the July 15 deadline -- Kanye needed at least 132,781 valid signatures from Florida voters in less than a week.
Kramer said the team had been working this past weekend in "formalizing the FEC and other things that they’ve got to do when you have a lot of corporate lawyers involved" and that they had "overwhelming support to get him on the ballot." It's unclear why that stance has changed but Kramer, who had previously worked mostly for Democratic candidates, said he had no opinion to offer on the rapper's bid. "Whether anybody is going to vote for him or not is up to them," he said.
"I have nothing good or bad to say about Kanye," he added. "Everyone has their personal decision about why they make decisions. Running for president has to be one of the hardest things for someone to actually contemplate at that level." He said Kanye dropping out would not be out of the ordinary because candidates often faced these kinds of obstacles and "any candidate running for president for the first time goes through these hiccups."
The news comes after it was reported that his friends and family feared he is in the midst of a serious bipolar episode. Sources told TMZ that those closest to the rapper were concerned that the episode had affected his decision-making. Kanye himself has not yet made any announcement about his bed following an explosive interview with Forbes, but recently posted a video on Twitter of him registering to vote for the first time at the county clerk’s office in Cody, Wyoming.