Taylor Swift Needs to Calm Down, She’s Not Shifting this Election

Should the GOP be worried that Swift could dash their chances at 2024? No. She may be able to carry a tune, but not an election.

“Don’t Blame Me” if Donald Trump loses to Kamala Harris. Blame Taylor Swift.

The pop star took to Instagram following last night’s hectic debate to formally endorse Kamala Harris for president. 

“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election,” Swift posted. “I’m voting for Kamala Harris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. 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.”

Swift added “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.”

Given Swift has now explicitly endorsed Harris, many are asking “Is It Over Now?”

Not quite. 

Swift’s endorsement will inevitably have some impact. The New York Times noted that when Swift encouraged her followers to vote in 2023, vote.com registered 35,252 new registrations the same day, a significant spike at the time. 

But while those numbers might look impressive, it’s helpful to look into where exactly they’re coming from. 

A Morning Consult poll from 2023 broke down the demographics of Taylor Swift supporters and found some telling results. 

A 53% majority of adults say they’re fans of Swift, with 16% identifying as “avid” fans. I’m going to assume it’s this 16% of fans that would be most swayed by Swift endorsement so we’ll use them in the rest of our breakdown.

55% of avid Swift fans identified as Democrats, with less than a quarter identifying as Republicans or Independents respectively. They’re majority women (52%), plurality Millennials (45%), and majority suburban (53%).

We can gather that these are demographics that were already overwhelmingly planning to vote for Harris in the first place.

Maybe the idea is that Swift’s endorsement gets more voters registered to support Democrats, but I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of these Swift supporters are in places where Harris was already primed to win like New York or California. 

I just don’t believe that there’s a secret contingent of Swifties in Pennsylvania just waiting to be activated that’ll hand Harris the Keystone State. That seems like something out of Harris’ “Wildest Dreams.”

Sorry. I promise that was the last one. 

The demographics also indicate banking on mass turnout from Swift fans is not without risks. 45% of those avid Swifites are Millennials, and a further 11% is Gen Z. The data tells us that those generational brackets are the least likely to vote. 

From the Berkeley Institute, “In 2020 Gen X, Baby Boomers and the Greatest generation had nearly 20%, 29% and 31% greater percentage points in their respective rates of voter registration than Millennials” and that “In 2016 and 2020, Gen Z had the lowest rates of voter registration for any generational cohort.”

So we’ve now got a compound complication on this endorsement. It’s likely a fraction of American adults that will be swayed by Swift, and a significant portion of those adults are from voting demographics that are not particularly good at showing up to the polls. 

The numbers just don’t add up. 

Obviously it’s not going to hurt Harris’ chances at victory that a well-liked celebrity has endorsed her. It’s probably better to be endorsed by Swift than a certain war criminal!

But I would caution Democrats on getting too over their skis on this. Swift’s endorsement is definitely a plus, but it isn’t going to be the election ending event that Democrats hope it to be. 

Want more proof? Swift has endorsed before and her candidate lost. 

In the 2018 Tennessee Senate election, Swift backed Democrat Phil Bredesen against Republican Marsha Blackburn. In a result surprising literally no one, Blackburn comfortably cruised to victory with 55% of the vote compared to Bredesen’s 45%. 

Didn’t seem like that endorsement did all that much there. 

So, should the GOP be worried that Swift could dash their chances at 2024? No. She may be able to carry a tune, but not an election.