Could Taylor Swift Influence the Upcoming Election?

Taylor Swift walks off the field after the Kansas City Chiefs 17-10 victory against the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship Game at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland, on Jan. 28, 2024. (Rob Carr/Getty Images)

News Analysis

Taylor Swift has yet to endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential race. But questions continue to swirl about whether or not the influential pop singer will have an impact on the upcoming November election.

Ms. Swift, 34, has been largely apolitical throughout her career but made her foray into the political sphere in 2018 after she endorsed two Democrat candidates—Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives—in the midterms.

“In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now,” she wrote on Instagram at the time. “I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country.”

Ms. Swift chronicled her newfound interest in politics in her 2020 Netflix documentary “Miss Americana,” attributing her former political apathy to her beginnings in country music.

“Part of the fabric of being a country artist is don’t force your politics on people,“ she says in the film. ”Let people live their lives. That is grilled into us.”

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Following the release of her documentary, Ms. Swift publicly endorsed the Biden–Harris ticket in 2020 and was critical of President Donald Trump while he was in office. She’s also encouraged her fans to get out to the polls—successfully boosting voter registration among young voters on at least one occasion.

Impact on Young Voters

In September 2023, the “Cruel Summer” singer—named that year as Time’s Person of the Year—took to Instagram to urge her more than 270 million followers to vote. “Are you registered to vote yet?” she wrote. Ms. Swift included a link to the nonpartisan nonprofit Vote.org, which reportedly spurred more than 35,000 registrations.

At the time, Andrea Hailey, chief executive officer of Vote.org, said the organization saw a 72 percent increase in the number of 18-year-olds registering to vote compared to the previous year.

Last month, the New York Times reported President Biden’s campaign team was seeking Ms. Swift’s endorsement in his bid for reelection.

Recent polling shows Biden’s ratings have drastically dipped to the lowest of any president in the last 15 years—especially among young voters. Trump leads Biden among registered voters under the age of 35 by 37 percent to 33 percent, according to a new USA Today/Suffolk University Poll.

Since Ms. Swift’s fanbase is largely comprised of liberal-leaning millennials who live in suburban areas, per a 2023 Morning Consult survey, some believe the singer’s backing of the president’s bid for reelection may help bolster younger voters.

About 18 percent of voters say they’re “more likely” or “significantly more likely” to vote for a candidate endorsed by the famous megastar, according to a recent poll conducted for Newsweek by Redfield & Wilton Strategies.

Similarly, a 2023 Harvard Institute of Politics survey — which featured a sample size of over 2,000 people, ages 18 to 29 years old — found that 19 percent of young Americans would be more likely to vote in the upcoming election if they received a personalized call or text message from Taylor Swift.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Ms. Swift’s rep for comment.

Both Sides of the Aisle Weigh In

Ms. Swift has been the focus of several conspiracy theories as of late, with former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy even conjecturing whether the upcoming Super Bowl will be fixed in favor of Ms. Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, who is a tight end for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs.

“I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month,” he posted on social media. “And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months.”

During a recent segment on his show, “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Fox News host Jesse Watters alleged Ms. Swift was “a front for a covert political agenda”—a claim the Department of Defense has since denied.

“[A]s for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off,” spokesperson Sabrina Singh said in a statement, cheekily referencing one of the singer’s most popular songs.

Although no one can definitively say what effect, if any, the pop singer will have come November—politicians have certainly chimed in with their opinions.

“What she was able to accomplish just in getting young people activated to consider that they have a voice and that they should have a choice in the next election, I think, is profoundly powerful,” California Governor Gavin Newsom told reporters at the second Republican debate last year.

Former South Carolina governor and 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley, on the other hand, has called all of the conspiracy theories surrounding Ms. Swift “bizarre.”

“I don’t know what the obsession is,” she said during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. “Nobody knows who she’s going to endorse. But I can’t believe that that’s overtaken our national politics.”