2020 Election Props: Will Kanye West Generate 1% of the Total Vote?

The 2020 presidential election is once again going to come down to the Democrats against the Republicans. The last American president that didn’t associate with either the Democratic or Republican parties was Millard Fillmore, who served his term as a member of the Whig Party.

Joe Biden or Donald Trump will win this election.

We know that already. We’ve known the next president will be either a Democrat or a Republican since the end of the last election, because that’s the way it always is. However, that doesn’t stop other people from launching their own presidential campaigns. If you have already voted in this election, you surely noticed that Biden and Trump weren’t the only names on your ballot.

Four years ago, Gary Johnson’s third-party candidacy may well have helped swing the election in favor of Trump. While none of the third-party candidates in 2020 have garnered quite as much attention as Johnson did four years ago, there are still thousands of Americans out there that will cast their ballots in favor of a candidate not named Trump or Biden this fall.

BetOnline has countless ways for you to bet on the upcoming election. If you’re tired of betting on outcomes involving Trump or Biden, you can now wager on some third party prop bets instead. What percentage of the vote will Kanye West accrue? Will people actually vote for Jo Jorgensen? How much of the total vote will come in on third-party candidates?

How Much of the Vote Will Kanye West Get?

• Over 0.5% (-1600)
• Under 0.5% (+700)

Did you forget about Kanye West’s “campaign?” We all did. Kanye announced he was running for president several months ago, but most saw it for what it was at the time. Republicans essentially talked Kanye into a fake run for the White House so he could essentially help split the vote, effectively helping Trump in certain battleground states.

Kanye isn’t even on the ballot in every state. In some states, including California, he’s listed as the VP candidate for Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente. Seems legit!

How desperate do you have to be to subordinate yourself to Rocky De La Fuente Guerra in exchange for ballot access pic.twitter.com/Dc6ugZOo3F

— Karin Sung 🗽 (@KarinSung_) October 6, 2020

A poll conducted around October 20 had Kanye receiving two percent of the national vote, which is quite a bit higher than I expected. That’s about two percentage points higher than he had polled a couple of weeks ago. Do people answer poll questions seriously? Maybe, maybe not.

Kanye has reportedly put over $12 million of his own cash into this “campaign,” which seems like the latest in a lengthy run of questionable decisions he’s made for himself.

Kanye being a VP candidate in California, his home state, is not going to help his chances of eating into national vote totals. Four years ago, Hillary Clinton earned nearly nine million votes in the Golden State alone, with Trump logging just under five million. Johnson accrued nearly 479,000 votes in the state, with Jill Stein earning 278,000.

Johnson got over three percent of the national vote in 2016, while Stein got just over one percent. Kanye is obviously a vastly more well-known name than either of them, but it’s still hard to imagine that many people actually voting for him in the actual election. A flier on the over on 0.5 percent isn’t the worst idea here given the +700 odds, but the under is clearly the safer way to go.

Will Jo Jorgensen Top Two Percent of the Vote?

• Over 2% (+140)
• Under 2% (-180)

Of the third-party candidates, Jo Jorgensen is likely the one that will attract most of the votes. Jorgensen, 63, is the Libertarian Party’s nominee, much like Johnson was in ’16.

Jorgensen has said her campaign is essentially there as an alternative to Democratic and Republican policies being pushed by Biden and Trump. She advocates for smaller government, and she may be a popular choice among Republican voters that can’t bring themselves to vote in favor of Trump again.

I like it! https://t.co/0bBR5n0MFB

— Jo Jorgensen (@Jorgensen4POTUS) October 30, 2020

While there’s certainly a swath of the public that leans right politically that won’t vote for Trump, I’m not sure enough of those people will actually cast their votes for Jorgensen, a candidate that obviously has no chance whatsoever of actually winning.

RealClearPolitics’ latest polling averages give Jorgensen an average of 1.6 percent of the national vote, which obviously puts her well behind both major party candidates. She is faring worst in most polls than Johnson did ahead of the 2016 election, when he finished with a little less than four percent of the nationwide vote.

The plus-money odds on the over are somewhat appealing here, but the under is once again the smart play.

Howard Hawkins, Anyone?

• Over 0.5% (+150)
• Under 0.5% (-200)

If you haven’t heard of Howard Hawkins before, you’re not alone. Hawkins is a 67-year-old environmental activist serving as the Green Party’s nominee this year.

Jill Stein was a popular alternative vote for Democrats that didn’t want to vote for Clinton last time, but I’d imagine many of those voters learned their lesson about protest votes after Trump won by an incredibly slim margin.

Any candidate on enough ballots to win the electoral college should be included in the debates.#OpenDebate #Debates2020

— Howie Hawkins (@HowieHawkins) October 25, 2020

This time around, I’m expecting fewer voters to cast their ballots as a form of protest. In the aforementioned RealClearPolitics polling averages, Hawkins was garnering just 0.4 percent of the national vote. That puts him well below Jorgensen, and well below where Stein was four years ago.

I may sound like a broken record at this point, but it’s tough to imagine a guy like this garnering even half of a percentage point of the national vote. If Kanye’s stealing anybody’s vote, he’ll be stealing Hawkins’, not Biden’s.

Will Third-Party Candidates Combine for 3% of the National Vote?

• Over 3% (+170)
• Under 3% (-250)

Third-party candidates were all the rage in 2016. Johnson, Stein, Evan McMullin, and Darrell Castle combined to garner 5.04 percent of the national vote last time around. That’s a pretty sizable chunk of the electorate considering none of them had any chance whatsoever of actually winning the election.

While I do get the sense that less of the electorate is willing to throw their votes away with third-party candidates in 2020, there will still be some that go in that direction. Three percent of the national vote is a tall order, especially with candidates like Kanye and Hawkins likely struggling to crack even one-half of one percent.

Jorgensen will be the non-major party candidate that generates the most enthusiasm at the ballot box, but it’s extremely unlikely that she’s able to even match Johnson’s vote total from four years ago.

The 2020 US Presidential election is going to set all sorts of new records for turnout. That’s because voters representing both major parties are as motivated as ever to cast their votes. People aren’t coming out in huge swaths and risking their lives in the midst of a pandemic to cast their pointless Jo Jorgensen vote.

Bet the under on non-major party candidates totaling three percent of the national vote in this election.