Former Green Party candidate Cornel West now running as an Independent
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Political activist and Princeton professor of philosophy Cornel West announced on Oct. 5 he will be running as an Independent in the 2024 presidential election.
West’s political career includes being an “honorary chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America,” participating in Occupy Wall Street protests, acting as Bill Bradley’s senior advisor during the 2000 presidential election, and acting as a surrogate for Bernie Sanders during the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, per Ballotpedia.
West posted to X, “People are hungry for change. They want good policies over partisan politics. We need to break the grip of the duopoly and give power to the people. I’m running as an Independent candidate for President of the United States to end the iron grip of the ruling class and ensure true democracy!”
Regarding whether his candidacy would take away votes from President Biden, West told The Guardian, “I happen to be focusing on the 40% that don’t vote at all, and I happen to be pulling from the 62% of folk who do vote but who would never vote for the two parties. So if there is some taking from both parties, it’s going to be very, very small.”
West has critiqued what he believes is the left’s consistent inability to prevent “a GOP tilt to authoritarianism,” according to The Wall Street Journal, and believes providing a third-party option may be what it takes to pull in disaffected voters.
In order to qualify for the ballot as an Independent, a candidate must petition in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The amount of signatures required in each state varies according to population.
West’s campaign manager Peter Daou told Politico, “It’s a major strategic hurdle for an independent or third party to attain ballot access even in one state, let alone all 50 as a present presidential candidate. So we will be applying as much rigorous analysis as we can to the best way to approach this because we don’t have unlimited resources.”
Politico reported, “An independent must collect about 550,000 signatures across the country ... with the first deadline on Jan. 6, 2024 for the Utah ballot.”
