Kendall Jenner Keeps Showing Up in Midwest Bars Like She’s Trying to Win Iowa

Is Jenner—recently spotted shooting the shit with randos in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and other key Midwest states—running for president? We investigate.

By Kylie Cheung | October 12, 2023 | 3:18pm

Celebrities

Kendall Jenner Keeps Showing Up in Midwest Bars Like She’s Trying to Win Iowa

Kendall Jenner, who famously solved racism with a Pepsi can in 2017, has been popping up at bars and grocery stores across the Midwest all week. Her timing—just a few short months before 2024 primaries—triggered my spidey senses, and so now I must know…Is she running?? Because honestly, why is a multimillionaire reality star making stops in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois, fraternizing and shooting the shit with randos (aka potential voters) if they’re not running for president?

Alas, the short answer is no: Jenner is merely promoting her 818 tequila brand in college towns across the U.S., beginning in the Midwest, apparently. Sure, this tour for 818—which has faced criticism from people questioning what business a white woman has creating a tequila brand at all—might read as an attempt to beat the coastal liberal elite allegations, but based on clips I’ve seen, Jenner seems to have been well-received!

Most Popular

Here she is at a Kroger in Bloomington, Indiana, on Tuesday:

And here’s Ms. Jenner serving patrons at a bar in Bloomington later that day:

According to local news outlets, Jenner on Monday dropped by two bars in Columbus, Ohio, stopped in Indiana on Tuesday, and on Wednesday swung by a bar in Detroit, then made the rounds at a slew of bars near the University of Illinois in Champaign. The Midwest jaunt seems to have started with Jenner’s appearance at the 2023 Forbes Under 30 Summit in Cleveland, where Jenner took a page from F.D.R. (who won a whopping 58% of the vote in Ohio in 1936) and participated in a “fireside chat” with Moira Forbes, president and publisher of ForbesWomen, about 818 and marketing in the age of social media. To Jenner’s credit, showing up at college bars in an age when everyone’s phones are glued to their hands is a surefire way to get on all our social media feeds.

So, there you have it. It appears that Kendall Jenner is not running for POTUS at the present—even though there are a couple shots of Jenner at these bars that I half-expect to end with her standing on a counter and preaching about gun safety policy a la 2018 Beto O’Rourke.

Of course, running or not (she’s not!!! For now…), Jenner is doing a better job at campaigning than most of the Republican presidential field. Unlike Vivek Ramaswamy, she hasn’t busted out rapping “Lose Yourself” by Eminem in front of a bar full of people (only to get hit with a cease and desist from the rapper days later.) Unlike Ron DeSantis, she’s managed to avoid weirding the fuck out of everyone. And unlike Nikki Haley, she seems to know her audience (in this case, wasted Midwestern college kids) and has yet to say anything awful that’s been met by total silence. So, not a bad start!