Two weeks after announcing his unlikely bid for president, Kanye West will hold his first campaign event in South Carolina on Sunday at 5 p.m.
The 43-year-old rapper’s rally will be at the Exquis Event Center in North Charleston for registered guests only, according to a campaign document obtained by Politico.
Amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, all attendees will be required to wear masks, sign a COVID-19 liability release form and practice social distancing.
Campaign trail: Kanye West announced his the first campaign event in South Carolina on Sunday (seen in 2018)
On Saturday evening, the former President Donald Trump supporter urged his 29.8 million Twitter followers to help him acquire signatures to get on the state’s ballot.
‘Hi guys please sign up to put me on the ballot in South Carolina at any of these locations,’ he wrote, listing eight venues. ‘You can also sign up at the website.’
Set to speak: The 43-year-old rapper’s rally will be at the Exquis Event Center in North Charleston for registered guests only, according to a campaign document obtained by Politico
The father-of-four’s rally comes just days after reportedly dropping out of the 2020 Presidential election.
Steve Kramer, an election strategist hired by West to focus on getting his name on the ballot in Florida and South Carolina, told Intelligencer, on Thursday, ‘He’s out’.
At the time, Kramer maintained that West’s bid was always serious and there were 180 people working in the ground in Florida when the decision was made to call the effort off.
Serious: The former President Donald Trump supporter urged his 29.8 million Twitter followers to help him acquire signatures to get on the state’s ballot on Saturday evening
‘I’ll let you know what I know once I get all our stuff canceled. We had over 180 people out there today,’ he initially told the outlet when the Florida campaign appeared to have come to an end.
‘I have nothing good or bad to say about Kanye,’ he later 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.’
Campaign professionals told the Intelligencer that West had started attempts to get his named on the ballot as a third-party candidate last week to mount a challenge against President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden.
Last week, West, 43, posted a video of himself registering to vote in Wyoming, where he owns a ranch. He has yet to comment publicly on whether his run for the presidency is continuing
One source said they had been approached to go to Florida to collect the signatures needed to make the ballot in the state by Wednesday’s deadline.
To appear on the ballot in the Sunshine State in November, West would’ve needed 132,781 signatures by July 15.
Kramer also added that he believed West’s campaign team were ‘working over weekend there, formalizing the FEC and other things that they’ve got to do when you have a lot of corporate lawyers involved’.
West revealed on Independence Day that he was running for president as an independent in 2020, calling for people to ‘realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future’. It is reported he has ended the campaign less than two weeks later
He said they had ‘overwhelming support to get him on the ballot’ and that ‘whether anybody is going to vote for him or not is up to them’.
‘Any candidate running for president for the first time goes through these hiccups,’ Kramer said.
He later told the Intelligencer that the staff were told the drive to get on the ballot was over, on the same day that West tweeted a pictured of himself registering to vote in Wyoming.
West, pictured above with President Trump in 2016, announced his bid against Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in a tweet on July 4
‘I want to show you how I just registered to vote,’ West had said.
West announced he is running for president of the United States, just four months before election day, on July 4.
The 21-time Grammy winner celebrated Independence Day by revealing his plans on Twitter, tweeting: ‘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.’
The rapper, pictured in the Oval Office, had previously voiced his support for Trump but pulled it back as he announced his intentions to run, saying he lost confidence in the president
The performer has sparked speculation over the years that he would potentially enter the presidential race one day, most recently in November, when he said he planned to run in 2024.
In his Twitter announcement, West revealed little of his plans, but later spoke about his platform in an interview with Forbes.
In his Forbes interview, West first seemed to say that he hadn’t yet decided whether he would run as an independent candidate, but was giving himself the next 30 days to decide what to do, even though he’d have missed filing deadlines for several state ballots by that time.
West-Tidball 2020! In an interview with Forbes about his presidential run, Kanye West named Michelle Tidball (pictired right) as his running mate ahead of the 2020 election
West said that he believed he could use coronavirus as a reason for being placed on those ballots, though.
But at some point during the interview, West said that he had decided to run and that his party would be called the ‘Birthday Party’ because ‘when we win, it’s everybody’s birthday’.
West has previously publicly supported President Trump, wearing MAGA hats and even going to the White House to meet with him, despite admitting that he’s never voted in a presidential election in his life.
Kanye West took to Twitter to declare that six month fetuses are ‘souls’ that ‘deserve to live’ in a now deleted tweet that built on the pro-life platform he announced in his Forbes interview
West told Forbes that he has since lost confidence in Trump and that ‘it looks like one big mess to me.’
He named Michelle Tidball, 57, as his running mate ahead of the 2020 election.
Tidball hails from Cody, Wyoming – the same town where West owns a $14 million ranch – but she has scrubbed clean her web presence in recent days.
Billionaire Elon Musk said West has his ‘full support’ when the rapper announced his run
Musk and West have a documented friendship, with the rapper tweeting out an image of them together just days before. Musk has since said he believes West should run in 2020
However, internet archives reveal a glimpse into the mind of the elusive ‘Biblical life coach’, who reportedly ran the website Yarash.org.
The site is currently ‘under construction’, but TMZ accessed one archived page featuring a biography of Tidball, which describes her journey to religious enlightenment.
Tidball was reportedly visited by God when she was just six months old and on the brink of death.
Among other things, the famed rapper said in the Forbes interview he believes vaccines are ‘the mark of the beast’ and that ‘Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work’.
He later posted and deleted a pro-life tweet saying calling six-month fetuses ‘souls’ that ‘deserve to live’.
West said that his wife, Kim Kardashian, and Tesla founder Elon Musk were his advisors at the moment and that he had suggested Musk could be ‘the head of our space program’.
Wife Kim Kardashian had little to say immediately after the announcement on July 4, but showed her support by tweeting an American Flag emoji in response
While there is no official deadline to enter the U.S. presidential race, candidates must meet certain filing requirements under Ballot Access Laws that vary by state.
The deadline to add independent candidates to the ballot had not yet passed in many states, including California, when West announced but were fast approaching.
He had already missed deadlines to add his name to the presidential ballot in six states by July 4.
Of the 538 Electoral College votes total, West has already missed out on 102 of those votes if he were to successfully make his way onto the ballot in other states – as the registration date has passed for North Carolina, Texas, New York, Maine, New Mexico and Indiana.
Long shot: The late registration – also the name of West’s 2005 album – would prevent him from standing any real chance against Trump and presumed Democratic candidate Biden; seen in November
Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina and West Virginia all have July deadlines also.
He could, however, have run in these states as a write-in candidate. Although, rules for this type of candidacy vary from state to state and in many states do not count or are tallied as part of the ‘other’ category.
The late registration – also the name of West’s 2005 album – would prevent him from standing any real chance against Trump and presumed Democratic candidate Biden.
West’s announcement was met with with mixed reactions of skepticism and excitement, as online bookmakers cut his odds of winning the election from 500/1 to 50/1.
A recent national poll showed West taking voters away from President Donald Trump
A national poll released on Tuesday revealed that West was polling at two percent and that his inclusion hurt Trump’s number more than they did Biden’s.
According to The Hill, respondents of the poll were first asked who they would vote for in November, without mentioning West’s name.
Biden won out with 48 percent to Trump’s 40 percent.
When West was included in the options, Biden’s tally remained at 48 percent but Trump dropped to 39 percent.