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Deez Nuts: the 15-year-old boy running for US president
Teenager from Iowa is currently running the most successful independent presidential campaign since 1996
The race to become the next president of the United States is hotting up, and a brand new candidate is stealing headlines from frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Deez Nuts has become the most successful independent presidential candidate in two decades – no mean feat for a 15-year-old schoolboy from rural Iowa.
The boy behind the campaign, which has been attracting worldwide attention, is high-school sophomore Brady Olsen, the son of a farmer and dental assistant who says he is ready to "put up a fight".
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He completed his official statement of candidacy last month and in a Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey released on Wednesday, Deez Nuts won nine per cent of the vote in North Carolina, eight per cent in Minnesota and seven per cent in Iowa, reports ABC7 Eyewitness News.
Voters were asked: "If the candidates for president next year were Democrat Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Trump, and independent Deez Nuts who would you vote for?"
Olsen told Rolling Stone that despite being 20 years shy of the 35-year minimum age limit, he was inspired to run for president because he "really doesn't" want to see Clinton, Bush or Trump in the White House.
"I saw the slop bucket that we call the GOP field, the one-woman show on the Democratic side, and the lack of any third party candidate and thought 'Man, Deez Nuts would be better than any of these guys,'" he said in a separate interview with the The Guardian. "So after that I just ran with it."
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So what does Nuts stand for? He's for balanced budgets, in favour of the Iran deal, against illegal immigration, for gay marriage, against oil subsidies and pro-choice.
"I feel that as equal human beings that we should be allowed to choose how to live our lives without being discriminated by one another," he says in his manifesto.
Olsen says his parents are fully supportive of his campaign. "I've told my family and some of my friends from school," he said. "They still think it's hilarious."
Asked why American voters should support him over Trump, the teenager said: "Because I'm young and I think I have fresher ideas because whatever decisions I make would have longer effects on me."
Experts are clear on the reason for his success. Jim Williams, a polling analyst who conducted the North Carolina poll, told the Guardian he believes his popularity is down to a hunger among voters searching for any alternative to the Republican and Democrat parties.
"You could call [the third party candidate] anything," he said, "and they would get their seven or eight per cent."
