Kanye West supported by just 2% Black voters in latest poll amid controversy over Jared Kushner meeting
A recent poll has concluded that presidential hopeful Kanye West's support amongst Black voters currently stands at just two percent amid reports that he met with President Donald J. Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Figures released on Wednesday by the Politico-Morning Consult national poll show the rapper barely garnering support from voters as he struggles to qualify for the presidential ballot in a number of states for his last-minute entry into the White House race.
Meanwhile, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden continues to hold a 9-point lead over Trump in the poll, which stands at 49 percent to 40 percent respectively. On the other hand, West garnered support from just 2 percent of respondents - 7 points behind the 9 percent of respondents who said they have “no opinion."
The "Famous" hitmaker has been a vocal supporter of the president and grabbed headlines following his notable visit to the White House in 2018.
According to The Hill, West has drawn criticism after he claimed that Harriet Tubman “never actually freed the slaves, she just had them work for other white people.”
"Wednesday's poll also threw cold water over the notion that Black voters are swayed by West’s campaign, as some strategists suggested could be the case when he launched his bid on Independence Day," per the outlet.
West received 2 percent of the Black vote and 4 percent of the Hispanic vote, when broken down by demographic. He reportedly did the best with the Generation Z demographic, of which 6 percent supported the controversial candidate. “I think a lot of people of color view Kanye’s bid for the presidency as a quixotic one, and they don’t see him as being legitimate for the office. It’s more of yet another Kanye publicity stunt,” Ron Christie, a Black Republican strategist and former aide to Dick Cheney, told Politico. "Democrats traditionally get 90-plus percent of the black vote. I think a lot of people are going to look at Kanye and just say, ‘I don’t think so.’”
West has reportedly been receiving help from Republican operatives in a couple of states, including Wisconsin and Ohio, where he has successfully filed paperwork to appear on the ballot. Last week, the rapper said in an interview he wasn't "denying" that his campaign sought to hurt Biden's chances at the presidency.
Democrats, however, think West is being taken advantage of by Trump and the GOP.
“I do think Kanye is, unfortunately, at the whims of folks who don’t have his, his daughter’s, his children’s best interests in mind with their policy,” Quentin James, executive director of The Collective PAC, told Politico. “To be helping that, I think, is just sad. And I think they’re taking advantage of his mental health situation to be very honest.”
The Trump campaign has strongly denied having anything to do with West's campaign. “We have no knowledge of anything Kanye West is doing or who is doing it for him,” said Tim Murtaugh, director of communications for the Trump campaign.
According to James, one must not underestimate the threat to the Democratic party posed by a third-party challenger. “I think this is a serious moment, in that Kanye West could peel off some of those voters who feel like Donald Trump or Joe Biden isn’t the answer to them,” James said. “I think people should know if you aren’t supporting Joe Biden or if you’re voting for Kanye West, you’re voting for Donald Trump. A vote for Kanye West is a vote for Donald Trump.”
The Politico-Morning Consult poll reportedly collected responses from 1,983 likely voters from August 9 to 10 with a reported margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. It was conducted before Biden announced Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as his running mate, which may influence voter attitudes. While the Trump administration has denied helping West's campaign, the megastar recently met with Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner. West later said the two discussed PowerNomics, a book that proposes a strategy to empower Black America.