Kanye West cannot win the US election

The argument

Kanye is unable to win the election because his decision to stand has come too late. In several states the deadlines have passed to enter as an independent candidate. The include New York, Texas, New Mexico, North Carolina, Maine and Indiana. Cumulatively these states account for 102 electoral votes. These are critical to winning the Presidency. This is not the only step he will need to take before becoming an official candidate. As James McCann, political scientist at Purdue University notes: "It's hard to see West having a field operation." His comment comes in response to critics who point to the lengthy process any candidate must go through, including mobilising a team to campaign for the necessary tens of thousands of votes to get him on the ballot in other states before their August/September deadlines. Given this, Kanye cannot win the election and can only have a very limited impact on its outcome.

Context

Kanye's rash decision to stand for President comes just four months before the vote.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Kanye's Twitter announcement that he is running for President has already received more than half a million Retweets. And endorsements from high profile public figures including Elon Musk. If this is a question of gaining traction or votes, he already has a PR machine at his fingertips. Were he not to gain the required number of votes beforehand, there are alternative ways for Kanye to be voted in. Citizens are able to write in their preferred candidate even where they are not officially on the ballot. If he succeeded in getting enough write in votes, Kanye could win in states where he is not registered.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise establishes that one path to 270 was closed, which no one in this question disputes — and the position it supports is not that he could not win but that the candidacy has no implications at all. Being unable to win is entirely compatible with drawing votes away from one of the two major candidates, which is exactly what the sibling positions claim. [Rejecting P2] The absence of a field operation is quoted from a single political scientist as an expectation rather than a finding, and it supports only the same narrow conclusion. The final step — from "cannot win" to "very limited impact" — is where the argument fails: in a close election a candidate on the ballot in a handful of states can affect the outcome without coming near victory, and no estimate is offered of how many votes he might take, or from whom.