In an Instagram post timed perfectly to coincide with the end of the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, singer Taylor Swift has revealed that she will be voting for the Democratic candidate Harris and her running mate Tim Walz. The post, which racked up over five million likes in just three hours, showed Swift holding her cat Benjamin Button and was accompanied by a lengthy statement. In it, the 34-year-old shared her reasons for making the decision, and for making it public, explaining that having watched Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Harris ‘fights for the rights and causes I believe.’
‘Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight. If you haven’t already, now is a great time to do your research on the issues at hand and the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most,’ she wrote. ‘As a voter, I make sure to watch and read everything I can about their proposed policies and plans for this country.’
‘I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.’
She added, ‘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. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.’
Swift finished by writing, ‘I've done my research, and I’ve made my choice. Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make.’ Then, she signed off her post as ‘Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady’, a reference to controversial comments made by Trump’s running mate JD Vance.
Swift’s endorsement comes after weeks of speculation about whether the singer would speak out about the election, or share her voting intention. Trump used Swift’s name as a part of his campaign in August, using false images generated using AI which purported to show Swift and her fans endorsing his run. The former president had reposted the images to his social media platform, Truth Social – something which Swift said had made her afraid of ‘the dangers of misinformation.’
She added, ‘It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.’
This statement could also refer to the controversy which has surrounded Swift this week after photographs of her hugging and laughing with Brittany Mahomes went viral after they attended the final of the US Open together on Sunday with their partners Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes, team mates on the Kansas City Chiefs. Mahomes had recently been praised by Trump himself for ‘strongly defending’ him against online controversy after she had ‘liked’ one of his social media posts. Swift was declared to be ‘spineless’ and ‘problematic’ by online commentators, who worried that her allegiance with Mahomes was an indicator of her own political views. The moment also inspired industry bible Variety to publish an op-ed which declared that the time was right for Swift to endorse Harris.
There has long been debate about Swift, and a pressure on her to announce her political stance in a way we don’t see with many other stars. Given her influence on her hundreds of millions of young fans (she has 289 million followers on Instagram alone) particularly in typically Republican US states, she has a fanbase which could be swung by her powerful influence if she so chooses to endorse a candidate. She endorsed a Democrat for senate in Tennessee in the 2018 midterms, and endorsed Joe Biden for President in 2020 (at the time she told V Magazine that she hoped her vote would help start the nation's ‘healing process.’) The 2018 endorsement was the first time she’d spoken directly about electoral politics, speaking in her Netflix documentary Miss Americana, she said, ‘I need to be on the right side of history.’
In that same documentary Swift said that for years she thought that ‘a nice girl doesn’t force their opinions on people’ and was scared out of politics by the backlash against The Chicks after they spoke out against George W. Bush. And yet, it has been Swift’s opinion that so many have been waiting for - an undeniable amount of pressure for one person to hold on their shoulders.
This endorsement for Kamala Harris feels hugely significant in an already momentous couple of years for Swift, with an almost completed Eras tour soon to be under her belt. If you had any doubts about her influence, a look at the economic boost to the countries she visited (she, for example, contributed £1 billion to the UK economy this year) gives you a glimpse at the power of Swift, for whom the term ‘Swiftonomics’ has been coined. It’s not just an economical shift she can generate, but quite literally a seismic one. Three nights of sold-out concerts in Edinburgh triggered earthquake readings up to nearly four miles from the show venue, according to the British Geological Survey.
Now, Swift’s political power will be on show too, and Kamala Harris will be hoping for a seismic shift in the polls thanks to her vital endorsement.