In an Instagram post posted minutes after the US presidential debate, Taylor Swift endorsed Democratic candidate Kamala Harris for president, saying she would be a “warrior” who would fight for the “rights and causes” she believes in.
“As a voter, I try to watch and read everything I can,” Swift wrote to her 283 million followers on Instagram late Tuesday, adding that she “will be voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz for President in 2024.”
“I think she is a calm and talented leader, and I believe this country can achieve so much more if it is led with calm rather than chaos.”
Swift also addressed an AI-generated image shared by Donald Trump in late August that falsely portrayed her and her fans as supporting his campaign for president.
She said: “It really brought home my fears about AI and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It made me conclude that as a voter, I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election.”
Swift said she watched the debate and encouraged her fans to find out “where the candidates stand on the issues that matter most to you.”
She concluded: “A childless woman who loves cats“Swift applauds this statement,” Swift wrote, referencing Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance's comments, along with a photo of her with her cat, Benjamin Button, one of her three pets.
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Speaking to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson in 2021, Vance called congressional Democratic leaders and the Biden administration “a bunch of childless catwomen who are miserable about their lives and the choices they've made, and they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
Swift endorsed Democratic candidates in 2018 and Joe Biden in 2020, but until Tuesday had not endorsed anyone in 2024.
Asked about Swift's endorsement of Harris on Tuesday, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz said, “I love her songs, but I want to live in a world where liberals make my art and conservatives make my laws and policies.”
Some of Swift's fans have already begun mobilizing for Harris: The Swifties for Kamala coalition officially launched in late August and has raised more than $138,000 for the Democratic candidate at a virtual rally that included Sens. Carole King, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand.
In a statement on Tuesday, Swift urged her fans to register to vote.
Harris' running mate, Tim Walz, told MSNBC he was “profoundly grateful” to Swift. “I say that as a cat owner, as a fellow cat owner,” he said, adding that Swift's endorsement took courage. “And that's the kind of courage America needs.”
In 2012, researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Maryland studied celebrities and Support and vote.
They used Oprah Winfrey's endorsement of Barack Obama ahead of the 2008 Democratic primary to see whether it had any effect on the polls.
The researchers concluded that Oprah Winfrey's endorsement was worth about 1 million votes to Obama, who won about 270,000 votes over his main primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the states used in their sample.
