The Kamala Era: What Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris could do

Taylor Swift has entered the chat.

Following the debate between presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, Swift backed Harris in a message to her millions of followers. The very next night, while on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards, Swift reminded people to register to vote.

Jordan Foster, a research fellow at the DeGroote School of Business, shared thoughts about Swift’s move into the political arena and what happens when celebrity, politics and culture meet.

Why are we talking about Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris? Do you think it will make a difference?

In short, yes. Taylor Swift is among the most well followed and widely covered celebrities in our visual and virtual culture. In recent years, her outsized cultural influence has been on full display, with audiences assembling in droves to catch her record-breaking concert tour, her back-to-back album releases, and much talked about romance with football star Travis Kelce.

While Taylor Swift has been relatively tight-lipped about politics, her 2018 endorsement of a democratic representative in the State of Tennessee — the centrepiece of her eponymous documentary, Taylor Swift: Miss Americana — compelled a massive peak in voter registration at the time.

Her demonstrated ability to mobilize fans in support of this or that candidate has prompted some speculation around whether Swift would put her weight behind Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. Sure enough, it was the latter.

Although political endorsements — celebrity or otherwise — do not always make a significant difference in the polls, there is reason to believe that Swift’s endorsement will. Buoyed by the current cultural ferment and by her massive following on social media, her messaging is poised to reach more than 280 million people on Instagram alone. And reach it has. In the immediate aftermath of her announcement online, some 400,000 Instagram followers visited Vote.org — 13 times the amount of visits the webpage sees on an average day in the election cycle.

What role do you think celebrities bring to politics and political movements?

While Swift’s cultural authority is quite unique, she is not the only celebrity with an interest in our shared political landscape. In general, celebrities play a key role in politics today, leveraging their persuasive power over audiences and fans to address a range of social issues and global crises including environmental crises and geo-political conflicts.

Where the election is concerned, it is worth nothing that stars like Oprah, Aubrey Plaza, and Mindy Kaling have also endorsed Kamala Harris. Singer-songwriter Beyoncé has provided Harris with music to propel her momentum in the presidential race, with other celebrities sure to follow.

Are there any drawbacks to celebrities picking a side?

Although celebrities are increasingly under pressure to speak up and address socio-political issues, there are some risks to doing so. Staking a claim in favour of one political candidate over another, for example, risks alienating some audience members.

Of course, there are also risks to remaining silent including reputational threats and audience blowback online. Millennials and members of Generation Z are especially keen to hear from their favourite celebrities, mobilizing online and in-person to #block celebrities who neglect to use their public platforms to address socio-political issues. Earlier this year, in fact, users of social media mobilized around the hashtag, #blockout2024, part of a larger movement levied against celebrities who have not commented on the war in Gaza.

Image credit: Ronald Woan from Redmond, WA, USA, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons