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There are plenty of politicians who were already household names by the time they threw their hat in the political ring. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has spent more than a few years hinting he could be the latest person to join that list, and there are apparently some political parties out there that think he’d be a good fit for President of the United States based on what he recently had to say.
Ronald Reagan was an accomplished actor before he was elected (and reelected) to that office, and while Arnold Schwarzenegger had to settle for becoming the governor of California, he proved Americans are more than happy to elect a thespian who dominated Hollywood with the help of some massive muscles.
Dwayne Johnson has repeatedly claimed he doesn’t really have any interest in getting intimately involved with the world of politics, but the former WWE superstar (whose life is also the basis of a sitcom that exists in a universe where he becomes president) has also declined to rule out the possibility entirely.
A couple of years ago, he admitted he was intrigued by a poll that stated 46% of Americans would throw their support behind him in a hypothetical presidential election, and now, he says that number piqued the interest of some political parties who apparently attempted to court him.
Johnson was the guest of honor on the inaugural episode of What Now? with Trevor Noah, and during their conversation on the podcast, he claimed he was contacted by multiple parties who seemed to think he’d be a good fit, saying:
“I’ll share this little bit with you: at the end of the year in 2022, I got a visit from the parties asking me if I was going to run, and if I could run.
“It was a big deal, and it came out of the blue. It was one after the other, and they brought up that poll, and they also brought up their own deep-dive research.”
It’s obviously worth noting Johnson didn’t specify which parties he was talking about, and it’s slightly hard to believe it would be either of the two that have dominated the American political landscape for the past 170 years (Millard Filmore–a member of the Whig Party—is the last president who was not a Democrat or Republican to occupy the Oval Office).
With that said, I wouldn’t be shocked to hear some also-rans (i.e. Green, Libertarian, the newly-founded No Labels) would be interested in recruiting one of the most high-profile (and non-problematic) celebrities on the planet to capitalize on name recognition.
It still doesn’t sound like Johnson has any serious interest in running for president, but it does seem like he hasn’t ruled it out.