Stephen King’s Ultimatum for Americans

Stephen King has weighed in on the 2024 presidential election, giving his opinion of the presumptive nominees and asking Americans to choose.

A rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump was confirmed last week after the politicians passed the nomination thresholds for their respective parties, having won multiple presidential primaries. With primary season effectively over, public attention has turned to the general election, which is less than eight months away.

King generally isn’t shy when it comes to sharing his political opinions online, and now the horror author has given voters an ultimatum.

“Trump runs his mouth and Biden runs America’s business. You choose,” he posted to X (formerly Twitter). At the time of writing, the post had 708,000 views.

Newsweek contacted spokespeople for Biden, Trump and King for comment by email.

King’s posts are often divisive, and social media users have responded to the author to express their disagreement.

“Biden has never run a business, not one. He has always made his money selling America out. We know you write fiction, but that’s more of a reason for you to stay out of politics,” one user wrote.

“Only rich people think Biden’s helping the people,” another added.

A commenter told King, “You’re delusional.”

Other X users, however, supported King’s statement.

“Trump fans think that because he says what he thinks and he isn’t a career-politician like the rest, so he must be on their side. They couldn’t be more wrong! Trump is only on his own side. He just makes false but grand promises and they all wholeheartedly believe him,” one commented.

Another replied with a GIF of the word boom.

According to a new poll, Biden is set to beat Trump in the upcoming presidential election. It is the third poll in the past week to predict a Biden win.

A national survey by the Progress Action Fund, a Democratic super PAC, conducted by Public Policy Polling showed Biden leading Trump 46 percent to 45 percent, The Hill reported. The margin of error was +/- 3.4 percentage points, meaning the politicians are statistically tied.

Two other recent polls also showed Biden marginally beating his rival. A Reuters/Ipsos poll of 3,356 registered voters showed Biden receiving 39 percent of the vote while Trump received 38 percent. It was conducted between March 7 and 13, and the margin of error was +/- 1.8 percentage points.

In a Civiqs/Daily Kos poll of 1,324 registered voters, the Democratic incumbent received 45 percent of the vote to Trump’s 44 percent. This survey was conducted between March 9 and 12, and it had a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percent.

Other polls have shown Trump narrowly beating Biden—including a Big Village poll of 1,436 likely voters conducted between March 8 to 13, in which Trump received 41 percent of the vote while Biden received 40 percent.

Another Big Village poll of 1,628 registered voters conducted within the same time frame showed the Republican receiving 39 percent of the vote to Biden’s 37 percent.

King has previously said that he joined the Democratic Party in 1970, and he has been an outspoken critic of the former president since before Trump was elected in 2016.

On May 24, 2016, King was one of 450 writers to sign an open letter opposing Trump’s candidacy, with the author supporting Hillary Clinton’s campaign.