Liberal independent presidential candidate Cornel West reportedly used allies of former President Donald Trump to gain ballot access in the battleground state of Wisconsin .
According to a report from USA Today , West received a boost from Republican operatives who helped him gather the required amount of signatures to be placed on the ballot. Documents from the Wisconsin Elections Commission reviewed by the outlet revealed that four individuals who are employed at the Republican-aligned political canvassing firm Blair Group Consulting worked to gather signatures on behalf of West’s candidacy.
Of those involved, the outlet identified Dausin Olberding, who works as vice president of field operations at Blair Group Consulting and previously worked for Trump's 2020 reelection campaign in Iowa, and Arik Amundsen, who is also a vice president of field operations at the group. Amundsen is also listed as a 2024 Oklahoma Republican delegate by the state's Republican Party. Olberding and Amundsen also operate Red Wave Field Strategies, which is a Republican canvassing firm based in Iowa.
Matan Bar and Simon Molina, who both work at the consulting group, helped gather signatures in Wisconsin.
It is unlikely West would make real strides in the election as he is currently polling below 0.6% nationally in the RealClearPolitics average of multiple polls, which is below Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 5.6% and Green Party candidate Jill Stein's 0.9%.
Still, both Republicans and Democrats have voiced concern about the effect of third-party candidates in swing states where winning margins are expected to be tight once again. In the 2016 presidential election in Wisconsin, Stein and Libertarian Gary Johnson received a combined 4.7% of the vote. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton lost the state to Trump by just 1% of the vote, which made some believe third-party candidates spoiled Democrats’ chances that year.
Polling indicates that West and Stein will take votes from Vice President Kamala Harris, Democratic presidential nominee, in this election, while Kennedy is expected to take votes from Trump.
It is unclear if the West campaign and Blair Consulting Group, both of whom did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner, knowingly worked together to gain ballot access in Wisconsin.
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"Only two candidates have a path to 270 Electoral College votes: Donald Trump and Vice President Harris. Republicans know that a vote for a Third Party candidate is a vote for Donald Trump, and that's why they've been more than eager to prop up spoiler candidates throughout this election cycle,” DNC spokesman Matt Corridoni told the outlet.
There have been links between West’s ballot access in swing states and GOP operatives in this election before. NBC News reported employees of other Republican consulting groups are collecting signatures in the battleground state of North Carolina.
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