PRESIDENTIAL hopeful Kanye West’s support amongst black voters currently stands at just two per cent, according to a recent poll.

The figures, released by POLITICO/Morning Consult, come at a time when it's emerged that West met with President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

West, a rapper and Trump supporter, has been backed by a number of GOP members who, according to Politico, have hopes that he may be able to siphon votes from Joe Biden.

But the results of the poll suggest that West isn’t making much of a dent on the results of the 2020 election as things stand.

“Democrats traditionally get 90-plus percent of the black vote. I think a lot of people are going to look at Kanye and just say, ‘I don’t think so,’” said Ron Christie, former aid to Dick Cheney and current Black Republican strategist.

According to the poll, West is additionally polling at two per cent support among all registered voters.

Since his campaign began, the Grammy Award-winning artist has run into a number of hurdles.

He has successfully registered as a third party candidate in less than 12 states and has only published a vague, simple list of goals for his presidency. 

Most notably, West held a presidential rally on July 21 in South Carolina, where he burst into tears – a moment his family later identifying it as a bipolar episode.

Some experts have said this as evidence that West is being taken advantage of.

According to Quentin James, executive director of The Collective PAC, “Kanye is, unfortunately, at the whims of folks who don’t have his, his daughter’s, his children’s best interests in mind with their policy.”

 “To be helping that, I think, is just sad. And I think they’re taking advantage of his mental health situation to be very honest.”

Although the Trump administration has denied connection to the West campaign, a number of indirect links have been identified.

Gregg Keller, who was formerly executive director of the American Conservative Union, has been leading the campaign.

Lane Ruhland – who formerly worked for the Wisconsin Republican Party and represented the Trump reelection campaign – is also connected to West, having dropped off the papers nominating him.

Perhaps most notably, West recently met with Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor.

According to West, the two discussed the book PowerNomics, which proposes a strategy to empower black America.

Although Kanye has not openly said that his campaign is primarily geared towards hurting Biden, he did not deny it when asked.

According to Forbes, when West was asked in an interview about whether or not his low chance of winning means he's primarily taking votes from Biden, he responded, "I'm not going to argue with you. Jesus is King."

President Trump has been campaigning hard to reduce his current 79 per cent disapproval rating with African Americans, mainly through targeted ads against problematic moments in Biden’s career, such as his participation in passing the 1984 crime bill, which notoriously incarcerated large numbers of African Americans.

Some strategists have pointed out that West’s conservative stances on issues like abortion alienate him from Democrats, the black community, millennials, and suburbanites. 

West does, however, have significant support in the polls from Gen Zers, 31 percent of whom support him and 6 percent of whom say they would vote for him.

West has said that he will mainly be relying on write-in votes to win states that won’t have his name written on the ballot.

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Many experts don’t see the West campaign as a legitimate bid for office, instead considering it a proxy-campaign propped up by the GOP to take away votes from demographics that are polling in favor of Biden.

“The bottom line is that Kanye West is an entertainer. That’s not to say that he can't participate in electoral politics, but his candidacy is more a distraction,” said Derrick Clay, a political strategist and chair of Ohio’s Legislative Black Caucus Foundation.

“I think that strategy is going to backfire on them,” Clay added.

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