Will Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris matter?
IT HAD ALL the ingredients of an internet hit: star power, good timing—and cats. Minutes after the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump ended, Taylor Swift told her 283m Instagram followers that she would be voting for Ms Harris “because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them”. Ms Swift signed the post, in which she is pictured holding her cat, as a “Childless Cat Lady”, a dig at J.D. Vance, Mr Trump’s running-mate, who said that such people run America. Ms Swift’s post racked up millions of likes and almost eclipsed news of the debate itself. But will it have any effect on the election?
Ms Swift long kept her politics quiet, but received a stratospheric response in 2020 when she endorsed Joe Biden, who went on to win the election. In July Elon Musk endorsed Mr Trump: he frequently accumulates millions of views on X, the platform he owns, when he shares gushing posts about the former president. But such endorsements are not without risk: opponents sometimes spy an opportunity. In 2008 John McCain’s campaign tried to paint Barack Obama as out of touch by tying him to celebrities, including Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, in political adverts.
Whether that had any effect is questionable. But another endorsement that year undoubtedly did. Measuring the impact of such things is devilishly hard, but a study by researchers at the University of Maryland estimated that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Mr Obama won him 1m extra votes, partly because of Ms Winfrey’s dominance of the airwaves. Social media has complicated matters. It has given more stars a megaphone and, at the same time, given internet users more power over which voices they listen to. The types of audiences that Ms Winfrey once commanded on television have splintered.
Likes are hardly a reliable metric to gauge whether a celebrity can change voters’ minds. For one thing, most of Ms Swift’s fan base shares her political views: it is mostly young, female and Democratic, according to survey data collected by Morning Consult, a pollster. Trump voters surveyed by YouGov, another pollster, for The Economist last month already had a far less favourable opinion of Ms Swift than did Harris voters. Among those interacting with her post will be foreign or underage fans who have no vote in America’s election.
A sizeable number of voters balk when celebrities get political. In 2022, 45% of Americans told YouGov/The Economist that they opposed celebrities who make political statements (42% supported them). In the 2018 midterm elections Ms Swift endorsed Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, for Tennessee’s Senate; he lost to Marsha Blackburn, a Republican. Beyoncé, a pop star with 119m Instagram followers at the time, endorsed Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat, for Texas’s Senate. He too ended up losing, to Ted Cruz, a Republican.
The impact of celebrity endorsements is perhaps clearest on voter registration. When Ms Swift posted her endorsement of Ms Harris on Instagram, she shared a link to vote.gov, directing more than 300,000 visitors to the federal voter-registration site within hours. A recent study from the Harvard Kennedy School lists several more examples. In 2020 Trevor Noah, a comedian, used his show to recruit 35,000 volunteer poll workers to help plug a shortage during the covid-19 pandemic. In the same year vote.org, a non-partisan voting platform, reported a 1,500% increase in website traffic after Kylie Jenner, a model and reality-TV star, shared a link to the website with her then 196m followers.
Glittering endorsements can benefit presidential candidates and political organisations financially, too. A viral social-media post is cheaper than a flashy advertising campaign. It is also an opportunity to encourage donations by speaking the language of fans: merch. After Ms Swift’s endorsement, the campaign quickly began selling $20 Harris-Walz friendship bracelets on its website, a nod to a trademark accessory worn at the star’s concerts. They sold out within hours.■