Turns out, Robert “Kid Rock” Ritchie’s “campaign announcement” earlier this month was a “marketing stunt” meant to capitalize on Ritchie's name being floated as a possible contender to face off against Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow in the 2018 midterms.
But after a poll from Delphi Analytica showed Michigan voters preferred Ritchie to Stabenow by four percentage points, the entertainer and longtime conservative says he’s seriously considering a run, according to Fox News.
“Musician Robert James Ritchie (aka Kid Rock) left his fans, as well as political junkies, guessing Wednesday about whether he will actually run for a U.S. Senate seat in his home state of Michigan – something the artist teased in a series of tweets July 12.
In a statement released on his website, kidrock.com, the rocker announced a new initiative to create a “non-profit organization for the promotion of voter registration,” while he continues to explore the idea of challenging incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich, in 2018.”
According to a note published on his website late Wednesday, Ritchie revealed that launching the nonprofit will allow him to raise money and start registering people to vote at his shows while he contemplates his next move.
Ritchie said that not being registered to vote is one reason “these jacka** lawyers who call themselves politicians” keep getting elected.
“The one thing I've seen over and over is that although people are unhappy with the government, too few are even registered to vote or do anything about it. We have over a year left until an actual election, so my first order of business is to get people engaged and registered to vote while continuing to put out my ideas on ways to help working class people in Michigan and America all while still calling out these jackass lawyers who call themselves politicians.”
In the meantime, Ritchie said he will take a “hard look to see if there was real support for me as a candidate and my message or if it was just because it was a fresh new news story.”
Democrats, afraid of being blindsided by another unorthodox candidate after many failed to take President Donald Trump seriously, are already preparing for the possibility that Ritchie will challenge Stabenow for her seat, which hasn’t been held by a Republican since the late 1990s.
When my name was thrown out there for US Senate I decided to launch https://t.co/RRVgISDFeq....
Read more: https://t.co/lUZk7yfy5q pic.twitter.com/ePIFbcVAB4
— Kid Rock (@KidRock) July 27, 2017
In an email obtained by the Boston Herald and CNN, Sen. Elizabeth Warren warned Democrats not to underestimate the once controversial entertainer.
“’I know a lot of people are thinking: this is some sort of joke, right?’ Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote in an email to supporters obtained by CNN and first reported by the Boston Herald.
‘Well, maybe this is all a joke — but we all thought Donald Trump was joking when he rode down the escalator at Trump Tower and announced his campaign, too,’ she said.”
Imagine: A senate campaign that expicitly started as a marketing stunt, but ends in victory. You couldn't make this stuff up.