The pres­i­den­tial can­di­date whose polit­i­cal star has risen the fastest this past week was not Ver­mont Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders, nor for­mer Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton, nor any one of the many can­di­dates vying for the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion. No, that hon­or goes to an inde­pen­dent can­di­date from Iowa run­ning under the name ​“Deez Nuts.”

Mr. Nuts, in case you haven’t heard, is actu­al­ly a 15-year-old teen from Walling­ford, Iowa named Brady Olson. Accord­ing to the Dai­ly Beast, he filed with the FEC to run for pres­i­dent on July 26 (with­out giv­ing his age). And as of right now, accord­ing to Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling, he has net­ted the sup­port of 9 per­cent of vot­ers in North Car­oli­na, 8 per­cent in Iowa and 7 per­cent in Minnesota.

Those num­bers are in the sin­gle dig­its, of course. But think about it. Deez could con­ceiv­ably con­tin­ue to hold the sup­port of that much of the elec­torate in those three states and might even­tu­al­ly pro­duce sim­i­lar num­bers around the coun­try. As we get clos­er to Novem­ber 2016, he may even­tu­al­ly have to bow out for any num­ber of rea­sons (e.g. the fact that he is two decades younger than the min­i­mum age require­ment for the pres­i­den­cy). But if he is capa­ble of deliv­er­ing those votes to anoth­er can­di­date through an endorse­ment, it could prove the key dif­fer­ence in the elec­tion. Deez Nuts could turn out to be a kingmaker.

Which makes the endorse­ments on the ​“Deez Nuts for Pres­i­dent 2016” Face­book page, which appears to be the offi­cial Face­book page of the cam­paign, for both Repub­li­can and Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nees of poten­tial­ly sig­nif­i­cant impor­tance. Regard­ing the lat­ter, the Bernie Sanders cam­paign should be relieved.

“Just gonna throw this out there now,” the mes­sage reads. ​“This is not for the gen­er­al elec­tion. My endorse­ment for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion goes to Ver­mont sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders.”

When asked via email why he backed Sanders for the nom­i­na­tion, Mr. Nuts respond­ed, ​“Because he almost com­plete­ly agrees on me with social issues and even some on fis­cal issues.” When asked if he thought his endorse­ments could prove a deal­break­er in the elec­tion, he shrugged off the sug­ges­tion. ​“Not real­ly,” he said.

On Face­book, he also endorsed Ohio Gov­er­nor John Kasich for the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion. As for the gen­er­al elec­tion: ​“I endorse myself.”

Could the endorse­ment from Deez Nuts be enough to push Sanders into the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty fron­trun­ner posi­tion? Does the Sanders cam­paign wel­come this endorse­ment? Will his­to­ry look upon the Deez Nuts inter­ven­tion as the high­light of the entire 2016 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign? All good ques­tions. I’ve reached out to the Sanders cam­paign for their com­ment on the endorse­ment but have yet to hear any­thing back.