Taylor Swift has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the 2024 US election, putting to rest the growing speculation about whether the pop icon would put her weight behind a candidate this year.
Prediction markets, platforms where users bet on the likelihood of an event happening, were forecasting the likelihood of her endorsing Harris. On Polymarket, users believed there was a 76% chance that she would endorse Harris. A Manifold market predicted a 76% chance that she would endorse a US Presidential candidate.
Do celebrity endorsements make a difference?
A recent Harvard’s Kennedy School study found that celebrity endorsements boost engagement and spark conversation. And Swift’s impact in the past is tangible. In 2018, she posted a simple voting registration link on her Instagram story, along with a more formal post on her grid. Before directing people to vote on vote.org, she writes in her caption, “So many intelligent, thoughtful, self-possessed people have turned 18 in the past two years and now have the right and privilege to make their vote count. But first you need to register, which is quick and easy to do.” That day alone, her post resulted in 65,000 new voter registrations, with the number growing to 250,000 after just three days.
And this time, her Sept. 10 post and story had an even larger impact. A vote.gov spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter, “there have been 337,826 visitors to vote.gov referred from the custom URL created and shared by Ms. Swift.”
Celebrity endorsements have impacted previous elections, too. A 2008 study found that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Barack Obama led to approximately one million more votes for him and a surge in fundraising.
But before Swift’s public endorsement, Swifties were taking the initiative. In August, The Swifties for Kamala Coalition was launched on a Zoom call where they raised more than $138,000. More than 26,000 people joined the call and listened to speeches by singer Carole King and senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand.
And we'd do it over and over and over again if we could...
— Swifties For Kamala (@Swifties4Kamala) August 28, 2024
Guess, what? You can! Rewatch the call anytime over on our YouTube ⬇️https://t.co/wY2gQvcwB1 #S4KCall
Why did people think Taylor Swift wouldn’t endorse a president this time?
Some thought Swift would sit out this election cycle, as endorsing political candidates is relatively new to her. Prior to 2018, she was known to not speak out about politics. But in 2018, she endorsed Democratic candidates Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives in Tennessee. And then again endorsed Biden in 2020 and encouraged her followers to vote for Super Tuesday this past March. But that didn’t necessarily mean she would endorse anyone this year.
Doubt surrounding Swift’s political opinions was growing after a recent appearance at the US Open with her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, and a small group of friends. This small group included Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and his wife Brittany Mahomes. After the event, there were pictures of Swift hugging Brittany Mahomes. While a hug may sound like nothing, a friendship between them may have spoken to changing political opinions for Swift. Last month, Brittany Mahomes liked Donald Trump’s posts speaking about his agenda for his presidency. However, she later unliked the post.
While not explicitly supporting Trump, the former president thanked Mahomes for her support in a post on Truth Social. And as a result, this friendship further confused whether an endorsement would actually happen. However, a source told Vanity Fair, regarding Swift’s friendship with Mahomes, that you can be friends with people you don’t politically agree with.
As Election Day drew nearer, doubts continued to grow. For example, on Polymarket, the odds of a Swift endorsement had dropped from 90% to 76% in the few weeks leading up to the news.
The question still stands: Now that Taylor Swift has endorsed Kamala Harris, will we see any impact on Election Day?
