Swifties Stirred by Endorsement: Experts Say it May Help Harris Snatch up a Swing State

Experts say Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris activated non-voters – those who fail to or choose not to vote – and excited fans say they think younger adults will now be more likely to register and cast a ballot on Nov. 5.

In a Sept. 10 post to her 283 million Instagram followers, TIME Magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year explained her election decision and why she made it public. She mentioned her fears of artificial intelligence spreading misinformation, claiming former President Donald Trump’s campaign website said she endorsed him. She also encouraged people to register and linked to resources for would be-voters.

In just one day, the voter registration website had over 400,000 visits, CBS reported on Sept.12 following the Sept. 10 debate. The Swift post also garnered around 11 million likes and 1.5 million shares. 

Annabelle Caraway, a political science and journalism student at Florida Atlantic University, said she planned to vote for Harris before the endorsement was published. But she was surprised, she said, with how the endorsement was carried out.

“I wasn’t expecting [the endorsement] to happen just then. I was expecting it to happen within probably a week or two weeks post debate. So for how fast it happened, that was definitely unexpected,” Caraway said.

The excited Swiftie, a nickname for diehard Swift fans, has been an ardent follower since 2010, when Swift released “Back to December” – special for Caraway because it is her birthday month as well as Swift’s. Caraway became a mega fan in her freshman year of high school. While she doesn’t necessarily think the endorsement motivated fans to vote for Harris, Caraway said it will probably cause a larger turnout with 18 to 29 year olds.

“I also think what is going to help with youth voter turnout is the fact that you have pop culture artists, like Taylor Swift, not necessarily endorsing candidates, but encouraging voter participation. And I think that's really going to show up in this election,” Caraway added. “I don't think it's going to impact who votes for Harris or who votes for Trump because there are a lot of Republican, and not just Republican, but Trump-voting people that are Swifties as well.”

Swift, who has 11 Grammys, has a history of endorsing democratic presidential nominees, including an endorsement of President Joe Biden in 2020. 

FAU Professor Aaron Veenstra, who is an expert in public opinion, noted the importance of survey data on the typical Taylor Swift fan: a young woman.

“​​The typical Swiftie is probably like an early 30s woman. We know from survey data that younger women – Gen Z, millennial women – are a strong group for Harris,” Veenstra said. “That's not to say that every Taylor Swift fan is voting for Harris, but just the typical one, we would expect to already be a Harris voter.”

A new poll released by Florida Atlantic Univertiy’s PolCom Lab on Thursday backs up that overall estimation. With women and with younger voters, Harris is the preferred candidate. The FAU poll found that Harris leads Trump by a margin of 50% to 45% among likely voters.

Veenstra speculated that Swift did not make enough undecided voters consider voting for her to win the election. However, he theorized, she may have the power to shift the swing state of Wisconsin toward Harris.

The other possibility is Swift motivating uninvolved voters – people who are not engaged in politics, but probably have all the lyrics from the “Tortured Poets Department” committed to memory. Veenstra said celebrities have a much easier time reaching the population of uninvolved voters than news organizations and campaigns. By sharing who they are voting for, they may motivate fans to do the same.

“I'm sure Democrats in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona are very excited about the idea of turning out even an additional 5,000 voters. I mean, if she activates 5,000 voters in Wisconsin, that might be enough,” Veenstra said.

In 2016, Trump won Wisconsin with more than 22,000 more votes than Hillary Clinton. In 2020, Biden won Wisconsin by just over 20,000 votes – a .63% margin. 

Veenstra said that if Swift could get 5,000 more people to vote for Harris, 20% of the margin would be taken care of.

FAU criminal justice major Sonya Walker has been a fan of Swift since 2010. Walker wrote that she admires Swift, who has three concerts in October at Hard Rock Stadium, for speaking her mind and being straightforward because it is something most people are fearful of, as of late.

“I definitely think Swift has enough followers to influence people’s votes, but also I think she may lose a lot of followers as well which is unfortunate,” Walker wrote in a text.

Michael Martinez, a professor of Political Science at the University of Florida and public opinion and electoral behavior researcher, agreed with Walker and said he’s keen to know if she’ll lose fans over her endorsement. 

“It'll be interesting to see how many Swifties are Trumpies too, but it'll be interesting to see if she loses any fans over it,” Martinez said. “I kind of doubt it. She's such a mega star.”

Meanwhile, Martinez and Veenstra have different theories about what happened behind the scenes ahead of the endorsement.

Veenstra speculated Swift’s staff reached out to the Harris campaign to coordinate Swift’s endorsement due to the timing – that it was posted the same night as the presidential debate.

Martinez doesn’t think Swift, who holds over 100 Guinness World Records, contacted the campaign to tell them she was ready to post. Faced with that timing, he surmises, the campaign would have wanted her to wait.

“Strategically, I would have thought it would have been better for the Harris campaign, for her to wait a couple of days. Because it's sort of, you and I are talking about Taylor Swift's endorsement. We're not talking about the debate,” Martinez said. “I would have thought it would have been better for the Harris campaign if Swift had done it maybe Friday, to give people time to talk about the debate, because Harris thinks she did pretty well in the debate, and we'll see what the polls say if it had any effect.”

Swift’s Eras Tour concerts at Hard Rock Stadium, which will include three huge concerts on Oct. 18, 19 and 20, could be a place where the world-famous vocalist encourages fans. It will, however, be after Florida’s voter registration deadline, which is Oct. 7. At the Sept. 11 TVA Video Music Awards, Swift used her time on stage to encourage the audience to register to vote, in addition to paying homage to the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She also gave a shout out to her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, the tight end of the Kansas City Chiefs who has, well, something of a following of his own.

If you would like to publish this article, please credit the writer and MediaLab@FAU. You can email the writer at jabramsky2022@fau.edu. Follow her on Instagram or Twitter at @jessabramsky.