So much for "sham candidate."
A 15-year-old presidential hopeful from Iowa who calls himself "Deez Nuts" has scored his first endorsement: from Jimmy McMillan, founder of the (independent) Rent is Too Damn High party. McMillan, who plans to launch his own presidential bid, says he'll run as a Republican to give Nuts (a.k.a. Brady Olson) the Rent is Too Damn High party's nomination.
"We will nominate Deez Nuts if he wants to run for the young people and the future of this country," McMillan told the New York Daily News Friday. " I would vote for Deez Nuts to let the people know that something needs to change."
It's not just McMillan who is nuts for Nuts.
Google users are apparently more interested in Nuts than either of the leading Republican and Democratic presidential candidates, too. Searches for Nuts surpassed both Hillary Clinton and The Donald this week.
#DeezNuts: compared to @realDonaldTrump and @HillaryClinton this week, on @GoogleTrendshttps://t.co/pIZkJRdYO2 pic.twitter.com/XIlBIOz3ik— GoogleTrends (@GoogleTrends) August 21, 2015
Public Policy Polling (PPP), a private political polling firm, announced on Friday that it would include Nuts in a national poll for the first time next week, according to New York Times reporter Trip Gabriel.
BREAKING @ppppolls will include #DeezNuts in a national poll for first time next week— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) August 21, 2015
That's after PPP included Nuts' name on three state polls, which helped spark his meteoric rise. In North Carolina, Nutz polled at 9%, capturing the national media's attention and making him a top trending topic on Twitter.
"The name makes people laugh and it's a long election," PPP Director Tom Jensen told the Times.
Nutz, for his part, is keeping the balls rolling.
“He’s now come out for a balanced budget. He’s come out in favor of the Iran Deal,” Jim Williams, an issue polling specialist at PPP, told The Daily Beast earlier this week. “Deez Nuts is starting to get serious.”
“The next step is to get some party nominations, like the Minnesota Independence Party or the Modern Whig Party,” Olson told the Beast. “It would also be great to find a VP, preferably McCubbins because the Nuts/McCubbins ticket sounds amazing.”