Taylor Swift endorses Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. But will it sway undecided voters?

In a post shared with her 283 million Instagram followers just an hour after the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the billionaire country singer turned pop star Taylor Swift declared her support for the vice president.

“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. 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,” she wrote.

It’s understandable that Democrats would be dancing – metaphorically and probably literally – since the post went live. Is being called “steady-handed” and “a warrior” by Swift akin to being blessed by the Pope himself? Absolutely. But a signed, sealed and delivered election victory? Not quite. At least, not yet.

Having grown up in Pennsylvania (a long-time swing state) and Tennessee (a conservative state), Swift is uniquely placed to reach a broad church of Americans in a way no other A-list celebrities can. While she may be a card-carrying Democrat and the mastermind behind the world’s highest-grossing pop tour of all time in 2024, her roots in the country music scene and time spent in the South means that when she speaks, voters in swing states, blue states, and red states listen alike.

When she posted a callout in 2023 encouraging people to enrol to vote as part of National Voter Registration Day, for example, a record-breaking 35,000 Americans registered in just 24 hours. According to Vote.org, which runs the annual registration drive, it marked an increase of 22.5 per cent from the previous year.

In the 2018 midterms, though, after successfully keeping her political views to herself for much of her career, Swift publicly endorsed Democratic candidates in Tennessee, saying that Republican candidate Marsha Blackburn’s voting record “appalls and terrifies me.”

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The days leading up to her decision to share the post, and the heated debates it raised between her management and her parents, were featured as part of her 2020 documentary, Miss Americana, in which Swift called Blackburn “Trump in a wig” and revealed she regretted not condemning Trump in 2016 when he was running against Hillary Clinton.

Swift ignored the advice of her team and the concerns of her father, who admitted to buying armoured vehicles due to the potential safety risks that could come from her speaking out against Trump and Blackburn, in a bid to stand up for what she believed was right. Arguably, that’s the most that anybody can do. Yet, she ultimately failed to sway enough voters: Blackburn won by 11 points and became the first woman to represent Tennessee.