Cornel West to Announce Running Mate on Wednesday

(Getty Images)

Independent presidential candidate Cornel West, whom Democrats fear could take votes from President Joe Biden in November’s election, is set to announce his running mate Wednesday on Tavis Smiley’s radio show, according to West’s campaign.

Independent presidential candidates have accelerated timelines to name running mates to gain ballot access in several states and the District of Columbia. On March 26, fellow independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. named lawyer and entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan as his running mate. Smiley’s show begins at noon ET.

“On Wednesday, we will joyfully open a new chapter in this ‘moment in a movement,’ by announcing a committed candidate for vice president who stands in solidarity with poor, oppressed and forgotten people everywhere,” West said in a news release. “Together, we will call upon the collective courage of every individual to value their vote and choose to stand with us to utterly dismiss the division, greed, and violence of the corporate-owned duopoly. We invite all to abandon these tired false choices and stand on the side of humanity itself.”

Because West is Black and popular in the Black community, Democrats fear he could pull some Black voters from Biden in November’s election. Black people are among the minority voting groups that are swinging toward Republicans this election cycle in numbers not seen in decades. A Gallup survey released in February showed Democrats’ wide lead over Republicans among Black voters has shrunk by nearly 20 points over the past three years.

A New York Times/Siena poll released March 2 showed that 23% of registered Black voters said if the election were held that day, they would vote for Trump, who gained 8% of the Black vote in 2020 and just 6% in 2016.

But West also is running far to the left of any candidate, vowing to end poverty and homelessness, institute a $27 national minimum wage, reparations for Black U.S. residents, free healthcare for any U.S. resident, codify abortion rights as a constitutional mandate, and nationalize the fossil fuel industry, according to his campaign.

In the RealClearPolitics average of polling that showed Trump with a narrow lead (41.9% to 40.1%) over Biden, West was at 1.7%, behind Kennedy (9.9%) and ahead of Jill Stein (1.5%), who is seeking the Green Party nomination. But West insists he is not in the race to be a spoiler.

“I don’t accept the spoiler category. I really don’t,” West told Politico in December. “A vote for Biden, a vote for Trump is a vote for Biden and a vote for Trump. And there may be slices of people who say, if I didn’t vote for West, I would have voted for Biden. But that’s not, to me, a spoiler.

“If you’re in the race, and you make a case and they vote for you, how do you become the spoiler?”