Kanye West Concedes After Failing to Get 0.5% of the Vote in Any State

Chris Willman
·3 min read
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UPDATED: Kanye West was a man of few words in seemingly conceding a loss in his presidential run Tuesday night, tweeting simply “WELP KANYE 2024” shortly after midnight.

Later in the night, he deleted the original tweet (seen below), which pictured his silhouette in front of an electoral map. West then reposted it without the “WELP” (the resigned-sounding equivalent of “oh well”), while leaving the declaration of his 2024 ambitions intact.

The hip-hop titan and his “Birthday Party” only made it onto the ballot in a dozen states, missing filing deadlines or failing to accrue enough valid signatures in others. None of the returns from the states in which he was eligible had him reaching even 0.5% of the vote.

As of 8:30 a.m. ET Wednesday, West had accrued just over 60,000 votes nationally.

Of the dozen states in which he was a contender, West got the most votes in Tennessee, getting the approval of 10,216, with 97% of the state’s returns in Wednesday morning. But that only amounted to 0.3% of the state’s total, and was only about a third of the votes cast for another third-party contender, Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen.

His highest percentage in any state was 0.4% — a result he reached in three: Idaho (3,631 votes), Oklahoma (5,590 votes) and Utah (4,344 votes).

Besides Tennessee, West also got 0.3% in Arkansas (4,040 votes), Kentucky (6,259 votes), Mississippi (3,131 votes) and Vermont (1,265 votes).

He picked up 0.2% in Colorado (6,254 votes), Iowa (3,197 votes), Louisiana (4,894 votes) and Minnesota (7,748 votes),

Earlier Tuesday, West had shared photos of himself voting in Wyoming, writing his name in in one of the states where he didn’t make the ballot. He declared it was his first time voting and made it clear what it had taken to get him to overcome his previous voting reticence.

“Today I voted for the first time in my life for the President of the United States, and it’s for someone I truly trust… me,” he tweeted.

West did appear on the ballot in a 13th state, California, but there, he was listed as the vice presidential pick of Roque De La Fuente. It was unclear whether West approved of being named as a VP contender by that candidate, who won 0.3% of the Golden State’s vote.

Unlike his competitors in the presidential race, West had not stooped to making actual campaign appearances, following a single tumultuous July stop in South Carolina where he wore a bulletproof vest as outerwear, wept as he railed against abortion and was loudly confronted by some of his own invited fans. He had recently made a high-profile appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, declaring at the outset that God had called him to be “the leader of the free world” but showing little interest in taking policy positions or even discussing the presidency much over the course of three largely religion-filled hours.

Assistance West received from known Republican political operatives, a recent meeting with Jared Kushner and West’s refusal to disavow Donald Trump or his previous MAGA advocacy led to speculation that the rapper was being used, wittingly or unwittingly, as a spoiler to sabotage the Democratic vote.

West was set to appear on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in the wake of the election on Wednesday night, but Kimmel revealed Monday that West had canceled. Instead, Kerry Washington and Senator Corey Booker will join the ABC late-night host.

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