Kanye West is strategising to put Trump back in office

Kanye's bid is being viewed with suspicion. With race and institutional racism now so central to the American political agenda, the black vote is more critical than ever before. Some believe that Kanye is running to appeal to Biden's black supporters. Not to win, but to reduce the overall Democrat vote share, and in doing so boost Trump's chances at the polls.^[1] This group points to the Netflix documentary "Get Me Roger Stone", about Trump's former political advisor. In the show, Stone describes successfully using this strategy in several elections to reduce the opposition's vote share in hard-to-win demographics. With Trump having alienated many black voters with his perceived inaction following the death of George Floyd, West may be his secret weapon to pull their vote share out of the two party race. It does not end there. In an interview with GQ in May 2020, West reiterated his support for Trump again, saying: "We know who I’m voting on," West had told the magazine. "And I’m not going to be told by the people around me and the people that have their agenda that my career is going to be over." This resonates with recent Ipsos polling data, which shows that black voters who do not support Biden, intend to vote for him in protest at Trump. As The Washington Post reports: "Former vice president Joe Biden currently leads Trump by a not-unexpectedly lopsided margin among black registered voters, 92 percent to 5 percent. His supporters are about evenly split on whether they are casting an affirmative or negative vote, with roughly half saying they mainly “support Biden” and the other half saying they mainly “oppose Trump.”^[2] If Kanye wants Trump to succeed, thismay be the next best option for these voters who are not bought into Biden, but do not want to vote for Trump.