Addy Al-Saigh had already gone to bed on Tuesday night when her phone woke her up with a notification: Taylor Swift had added a post on Instagram.
The pop star had endorsed Kamala Harris for president. Al-Saigh was thrilled.
“She has this impact on such a large amount of people that it is super important that she uses her voice, which I’m so glad she did,” said Al-Saigh, a 19-year-old college student who lives in Virginia. “I am hopeful, definitely hopeful, that this will help push voter registration and push more people to get out and speak up and use their voice.”
Perhaps no celebrity endorsement has ever been as hotly anticipated as Swift’s – and she delivered in Miss Americana style on Tuesday, voicing her support for Harris and Tim Walz just minutes after the presidential debate between Harris and Donald Trump concluded.
“I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” Swift wrote of Harris. “I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate Tim Walz,” who Swift tagged, “who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF and a woman’s right to her own body for decades”.
The question on many minds is: does it matter? Although it’s difficult to measure the impact of celebrity endorsements, they can move the needle in elections, especially by energizing voters who may otherwise sit on the sidelines. After Swift encouraged her fans to vote in 2023, Vote.org recorded more than 35,000 registrations in a single day. Al-Saigh first registered to vote because Swift had posted a voter registration link in her Instagram Stories.
In January, polling conducted for Newsweek found that 18% of voters say they are “more likely” or “significantly more likely” to vote for a Swift-backed candidate, while 17% say they are less likely. Swift’s endorsement is likely to hold particular sway among Americans under 35, since about 30% of that group say they are more likely to vote for someone Swift supports. More than half of Swift’s most avid fans already identify as Democrats, a 2023 Morning Consult poll found. The other half of her fanbase is split evenly between Republicans and independents.
Swifties for Kamala, which is working to mobilize fans of Swift and has raised more than $150,000 for the Harris campaign, celebrated the endorsement. “We knew she would speak when the time was right and are so excited to keep up the fight,” Irene Kim, the organization’s co-founder and executive director, said in a statement. “Swifties are a diverse group – it’s what strengthens our connections to one another and shapes our shared values.”
Trump, meanwhile, dismissed Swift’s endorsement. “She’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace,” he said Wednesday on Fox & Friends. Matt Gaetz, the Republican congressman from Florida, said that although he liked Swift’s music, he wanted “to live in a world where liberals make my art and conservatives make my laws”.
Jasmine Amussen, a 35-year-old Democrat in the swing state of Georgia who previously responded to a Guardian survey about Swift’s political power, was particularly struck by the musician’s mention of how Trump had used AI-generated images of the pop star to falsely suggest that Swift had endorsed him.
“It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” Swift wrote in her Instagram post.
“I think young people, especially young women, are, like, really grossed out and horrified by things like that,” said Amussen, who said her vote was not personally affected by Swift’s endorsement. “For people who have spent their whole life online and who have experienced a lot of really negative things about being online, like revenge porn and the Nudify websites and things like that, I think it really meant something that she said it like that.”
Swift signed off her endorsement as “Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady” – a reference to comments by Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, denigrating women who do not have children. Shortly afterward, Elon Musk, a Trump supporter, responded with a tweet that drew widespread condemnation.
“Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life,” Musk tweeted.
“I found it disgusting,” Jared Quigg, a 22-year-old Swift fan in Indiana, said of Musk’s post. “I despise that man.”
Still, Quigg doesn’t think that Swift’s post will motivate many voters. “If she were to speak up on specific issues, I think that would move the needle on things. But as far as her endorsement, she didn’t really delve too much into issues,” said Quigg, who plans to vote for Harris even though he doesn’t “really like her much at all”.
“Now, if she were to speak up about fracking or Palestine, issues that might be considered more important to progressives, perhaps that could have an impact on the party”, Quigg added.
Al-Saigh, for her part, wants to get her Virginia college’s Swift fan club to do work around the election, such as helping register people to vote, now that the musician has made her views clear.
“Taylor Swift is such a global sensation that if she cares about something, it’s important,” Al-Saigh said. “That’s the way I feel, and that’s the way I think a lot of other people feel too.”
Carter Sherman is a reproductive health and justice reporter at Guardian US
