Early campaigns McMillan's first run for political office came in
1993, when he ran for
Mayor of New York on the Rent Is Too Damn High ticket. In the course of that campaign, McMillan was at one point tied to a tree and doused with gasoline; he later climbed the
Brooklyn Bridge and refused to come down from it unless television stations broadcast his message. He was disqualified from the ballot for coming 300 petition signatures short of the 7,500 needed to qualify for the general election ballot. McMillan next ran for
Governor of New York in
1994 by traveling from his home in Brooklyn through
upstate New York to Buffalo on foot, staying in homeless shelters along the way; he had planned to walk back to Brooklyn, but an injury in Rochester led to him taking a bus home. When he arrived in Buffalo, the site of the state Democratic convention, McMillan disrupted a speech by incumbent Governor
Mario Cuomo at the convention and was thrown out because of it. After failing to collect enough signatures to get onto the ballot, he continued in a
write-in campaign. McMillan ran for the
United States Senate in the
2000 election in New York but was removed from the ballot. McMillan qualified for the November general election ballot for Mayor of New York City in
2005 and
2009. In 2005, he received over 4,111 votes (0.32%) and in 2009, he received 2,332 votes (0.2%). McMillan received 13,355 votes (0.3%) in the
2006 gubernatorial election, coming fifth out of six candidates.
2010 gubernatorial campaign For the 2010 campaign, McMillan filed petitions to appear on the Democratic primary ballot and the Rent Is Too Damn High line. However, he put very little effort into the Democratic petitions, and the vast majority of the 13,350 signatures bearing his name were collected by
Randy Credico, who had partnered with McMillan for a joint Democratic petition. Credico had counted on McMillan to collect 10,000 signatures to put his total at over 20,000, above the 15,000 required to get onto the ballot, but McMillan never followed through, leaving both candidates short of the necessary signatures to force a Democratic primary against
state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who was thus unopposed. Credico, in response, called McMillan a "jack-off" and a "sorry ass", accusing him of "working against me", "turn[ing] in a wagonload of blank pages and then [leaving] Albany in brand new automobiles." McMillan did file the necessary signatures to get onto the "Rent Is 2 Damn High" line; the petitions were technically invalid because they did not include a lieutenant governor candidate, but McMillan was allowed onto the ballot anyway because nobody challenged the petitions. During an appearance at a 2010 gubernatorial debate in which McMillan figured prominently, he stated his views on gay marriage, by saying "The Rent Is Too Damn High Party believes that if you want to marry a shoe, I'll marry you." After the debate, McMillan garnered significant attention from the media. The
Democratic nominee, Andrew Cuomo responded to one of his statements during this appearance by saying "I'm with Jimmy; the rent
is too damn high." The appearance inspired a song by
The Gregory Brothers. in
Washington, D.C. McMillan, perceived by many as a
protest vote, garnered 41,129 votes (0.88%), enough to finish in fifth place out of seven, compared to winning Andrew Cuomo's 2.5 million votes and second-place
Carl Paladino's 1.4 million votes. McMillan gained almost as many votes as
Libertarian Party candidate
Warren Redlich (48,359 votes), and nearly double the votes of Anti-Prohibition Party candidate
Kristin M. Davis (20,421 votes). McMillan's gubernatorial campaign was the subject of an independent, feature-length documentary titled
DAMN!. Filmmakers Aaron Fisher-Cohen and Kristian Almgren documented McMillan throughout his campaign for Governor of New York, as well as the events immediately following McMillan's loss of the election. The film was an official selection at the
Little Rock Film Festival in Arkansas, as well as at the
Brooklyn Film Festival, but did not officially premiere until August 2011.
2012 presidential campaign McMillan was a registered member of the
Democratic Party. Then, on December 23, 2010, he said that he would switch parties and run as a
Republican in the 2012 U.S. presidential election, to avoid a primary challenge from President
Barack Obama. He also campaigned with performance artist and activist
Vermin Supreme and appeared as Supreme's presidential running mate in the 2014 documentary about Supreme's 2012 presidential campaign,
Who Is Vermin Supreme? An Outsider Odyssey, directed by Steve Onderick. McMillan and Supreme made a pact, each agreeing to act as vice president for the other if either were elected. He believes that his greatest political strengths include a mastery of social media, an ability to pinch pennies, and inimitable political vision. McMillan appeared at the
Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2011. He also appeared at Northeastern University in March 2011, through the Political Science Student Association, where he discussed key issues. McMillan campaigned during the
Occupy Wall Street protests, criticizing the protesters for voting for the wrong person but defending the protesters' right to protest. On November 15, 2011, McMillan held court on the 23rd floor of the
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority offices kibbitzing with his legal staff and media representatives. McMillan was the keynote speaker at Occupy Tenafly on
May Day 2012. There, he told protesters that college tuition is also "too damn high". He was not invited to any of the
Republican debates and did not appear on any primary ballots. However, he did appear in a debate against comedian Connor Ratliff on
The Chris Gethard Show, a public access program in New York City. Ratliff was also running for president on the platform of him being old enough to be elected president. On September 13, 2012, McMillan suspended his candidacy to run for
Mayor of New York City in the
2013 election, and endorsed President Barack Obama.
2013 mayoral campaign McMillan announced his fourth campaign for
Mayor of New York City on September 13, 2012. On April 24, 2013, McMillan released a song and video called "Rent Is Too Damn High" on YouTube. In the song, McMillan raps about the problems of the American economy. In one part of the song, he says, "Rent and the deficit is too damn high. Poverty and unemployment both up in the sky. Wages and education is too damn low, economic recovery is too damn slow." McMillan's video received over 300,000 views in its two first days after being uploaded. McMillan endorsed
Anthony Weiner in the Democratic primary. In the general election, McMillan received 1,990 votes (0.18%).
2014 gubernatorial campaign On May 22, 2014, McMillan announced his intentions to again run for Governor of New York. However, his petition to be on the ballot was challenged, and he was later thrown off the ballot by the state board of elections, which claimed his petition contained too many photocopied pages to meet the signature threshold. Subsequently, McMillan endorsed the Libertarian Party candidate,
Michael McDermott, for governor.
2016 presidential campaign McMillan announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 2016 election, but withdrew from the campaign on December 9, 2015. He subsequently announced that he was retiring from politics before endorsing Republican candidate
Donald Trump.
2017 City Council campaign McMillan ran for
New York City Council in 2017 as a Republican/Rent Is Too Damn High fusion ticket. He lost to
Carlina Rivera, a Democrat, finishing second with 12% of the vote, beating out three other candidates of various parties including
Liberal and
Green.
2018 gubernatorial campaign McMillan announced another run for governor in 2018, accusing then-incumbent
Andrew Cuomo and the
Moreland Commission of violating federal civil rights laws. They were challenged and ruled invalid in September. ==Political positions==