How Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris might impact the U.S. presidential election

Taylor Swift is nobody's idea of an opening act, and she followed Kamala Harris's first U.S. presidential debate performance minutes later by endorsing the Democratic nominee.

Swift made the endorsement for the Nov. 5 presidential election in an Instagram post to her 283 million followers, calling Harris a "steady-handed, gifted leader."

"There were people this morning on my TikTok page who were literally crying because of this news, just crying out of joy and relief," said Brian Donovan, a University of Kansas professor who teaches a course called The Sociology of Taylor Swift.

The impact of celebrity endorsements on voting results is difficult to isolate from other factors, and the research that exists largely predates an era where social media and influencers help drive narratives and news coverage. An all-star lineup in the multi-city Vote for Change tour largely stumped for John Kerry in 2004 — the Democrat didn't win, though it's possible the tour's voter mobilization efforts had some impact, as turnout in the youngest cohort jumped nearly 10 percentage points from the previous two elections.

Swift won one and lost one in specific endorsements of candidates for U.S. Congress in her home state of Tennessee in 2018, but neither of those contests were seen as toss-ups before she did so.

In an April survey conducted by Tennessee's Beacon Center, a free market think-tank, 81 per cent said a Swift endorsement would not affect the way they plan to vote, with 12 per cent saying it would make them more likely to vote for her endorsed candidate, and five per cent saying it would make them less likely.

"Fans aren't blind followers of their celebrities, but rather, they engage celebrities in rigorous ways," said Dr. Ashley Hincke, associate professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, who's been studying online fan communities and political discourse for 15 years.

There has been one notable case study, which concluded that Oprah Winfrey's endorsement of Barack Obama during the 2008 Democratic primaries "had statistically and politically significant effects on Obama's political outcomes," estimating that over one million votes went the Illinois senator's way as he battled Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

LISTEN | New Yorker reporters on the debate, and that endorsement:

There are reasons to think Swift could have an Oprah-like effect, but in the general election.

"Celebrity endorsements don't tend to move the needle of public opinion as much as people think or as much as people want, but Taylor Swift is not an ordinary celebrity," says Donovan.

First, the nature of the endorsement was, according to Donovan, "unusually full-throated and enthusiastic," both in and of itself and compared to her 2020 endorsement of Joe Biden. While Swift was popular then, multiple album releases since and the blockbuster Eras tour have sent her popularity to levels arguably not seen at least since Michael Jackson in the 1980s.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, this election does not feature two 70-something men as in 2020, but a very known quantity in Trump against the first nominated woman of colour. Eligible women voters have reliably turned out to vote at a rate three to four percentage points higher than men in presidential elections the past 20 years, even without a Swift endorsement and the re-emergence of abortion as a top issue for Democrats after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Swift's effect on the youngest of voters will also likely be studied by future researchers. Just under 52 per cent of eligible voters between 18 and 24 cast a vote in 2020, some 24 percentage points lower than the 65 to 74 bracket, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.