I can't believe 60,000 people voted for Kanye West

While Americans are waiting anxiously for the election results, one presidential candidate has willingly accepted defeat. Kanye West, who had no actual chance of winning, seemingly conceded on Tuesday. Shortly after midnight the rapper, tweeted “WELP KANYE 2024," before deleting and retweeting without the "WELP." Still, despite his bizarre and often incoherent campaign, West's party the Birthday Party garnered a surprising amount of support on election day.

Because he only appeared on ballots in 12 states, West couldn't earn enough votes to become the next US president. Furthermore, ahead of the election Ipsos/Reuters reported that West was polling at 0% . Still, that didn’t stop fans from casting a vote for West. By Wednesday morning, the rapper had reportedly accrued over 60,000 votes nationally. West earned the majority of his support in Tennessee, where he earned 10,216 votes. His highest percentage in any state was 0.4%, which he reached in Idaho (3,631 votes), Utah (4,344 votes), and Oklahoma (5,590 votes). West failed to reach 0.5% of the vote in any race, but still in the midst of a heated election where democracy hangs by a thread, tens of thousands of people felt confident voting for West.

Ye has spent recent weeks urging followers to vote for him as a write-in candidate in the states he didn’t make it on the ballot. The 21-time Grammy Award winner revealed that he voted for the first time yesterday in Cody, Wyoming, after writing in his own name in, tweeting “God is so good. Today I am voting for the first time in my life for the President of the United States, and it’s for someone I truly trust ... me.” It's unclear if Kim Kardashian counts as one of his supporters, but his wife had yet to offer him a public endorsement.

According to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, West spent $10.3 million on what turned out to be an erratic, ultra religious campaign. As proven by his political ads, he never really developed any clear messaging or policy. When appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast last week he simply declared that God had called him to be “the leader of the free world” and apparently that was enough to earn thousands of votes.

Even though West accepted defeat this time around, it looks like he will unfortunately be back in four years.