Taylor Sift by Brian Friedman via Shutterstock.com
CV NEWS FEED // A recent Newsweek poll showed that just shy of 1 in 5 respondents would be more likely to vote for the candidate pop singer Taylor Swift endorses in the 2024 presidential election.
As Newsweek reported Sunday, 18% “of voters say they’re ‘more likely’ or ‘significantly more likely’” to vote for Swift’s preferred candidate.
Notably, a similar 17% conversely said they are less likely to vote for a candidate Swift backs.
Taking both groups into account, a combined 35% of the poll’s respondents indicated they are willing to base their voting decision on that of the musical artist.
A slight majority of respondents – 55% – said they “would be neither more nor less likely” to back Swift’s choice.
“Of all the respondents, 45 percent said they were fans of the singer, and 54 percent said they were not,” Newsweek added. “Only 6 percent said they were not familiar with Swift.”
Newsweek also demonstrated that the extent of Swift’s influence was drastically different across age groups:
Roughly 3 in 10 Americans under 35 said they’d be more likely to vote for a candidate backed by Swift. Only 4 percent of Americans 65 and older said they’d be swayed by a Swift endorsement.
Media consultant Brad Adgate told the magazine Swift is “so talented and so popular and so ingrained in pop culture” that “no one is close to her.”
“Media and social media are now the central organizing framework of many Americans’ lives,” noted communications expert James Haggerty. “And in a world awash in messages, it’s the celebrity voices that really resonate.”
Given her left-wing political positions, Swift is likely to endorse President Joe Biden. She also previously endorsed the now-incumbent president when he was challenging then-President Donald Trump in 2020.
On Monday, The New York Times ran an article titled, “Inside Biden’s Anti-Trump Battle Plan (and Where Taylor Swift Fits In).”
The authors noted that the Biden re-election campaign’s
biggest and most influential endorsement target is Ms. Swift, 34, the pop sensation and N.F.L. enthusiast, who can move millions of supporters with an Instagram post or a mid-concert aside. She endorsed Mr. Biden in 2020 and, last year, a single Instagram post of hers led to 35,000 new voter registrations. Fund-raising appeals from Ms. Swift could be worth millions of dollars for Mr. Biden.
…
The chatter around Ms. Swift and the potential of reaching her 279 million Instagram followers reached such intensity that the Biden team urged applicants in a job posting for a social media position not to describe their Taylor Swift strategy — the campaign had enough suggestions already.
“One idea that has been tossed around, a bit in jest: sending the president to a stop on Ms. Swift’s Eras Tour,” the Times added.
That day, CNN anchor John Berman asked Biden White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre “[W]hat would Swift’s support give the president?”
He also asked her if Biden had any plans to appear in Swift’s current tour.
As The Daily Wire reported:
The White House Press Secretary laughed before she replied, “So let me first say I got to be really mindful. I’m a federal employee. As you know, there’s something called the Hatch Act, so certainly cannot speak to anything that is related to 2024 an upcoming election.”
“[I]n the press office shop, there are a lot of … fans of Taylor Swift,” Jean-Pierre added. “And so I’m just going to leave it there.”
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For over a decade since first appearing on Billboard charts back in 2006, Swift remained silent about her political preferences. Just one month before the 2018 midterm elections, she endorsed two Democratic congressional candidates running in her adopted home state of Tennessee.
“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 in a 2018 Instagram post announcing her departure from being apolitical.
“I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG,” Swift continued:
I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent.
I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love.
She then blasted now-Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, for opposing the redefinition of marriage. In addition, Swift indicated that she was “appall[ed]” and “terrifi[ed]” by the then-congresswoman’s solidly conservative voting record.
In the post, Swift endorsed Blackburn’s opponent, former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen, who went on to lose the election by nearly 11 points. Swift also endorsed then-Rep. Jim Cooper, D-TN, who was running for reelection in a safely Democratic seat.
Soon after, the singer came out in full support of legalized abortion.
On June 24, 2022, the day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, she took to X (then known as Twitter) to write that she was “terrified.”
‘[A]fter so many decades of people fighting for women’s rights to their own bodies, today’s decision has stripped us of that,” Swift wrote. She reposted a statement from former Democratic First Lady Michelle Obama.
