Over 300K people clicked on Taylor Swift's voter registration link in less than 12 hours

11 September 2024

Pop megastar Taylor Swift officially announced her endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday night in an Instagram post and encouraged her hundreds of millions of followers to register to vote.

On Wednesday, NPR reported that Swift's endorsement appears to have had an astonishing impact in the immediate hours following the post. In a separate Instagram Story (featured posts available through clicking the profile picture that are available for 24 hours), Swift included a link to the website vote.gov, which is a one-stop resource for voters looking for information about how to register depending on their state.

Swift posted the link to her Story section before midnight ET on Wednesday morning. And a spokesperson for the General Services Administration said that Swift's link had prompted more than 306,000 Instagram users to click as of 11 AM ET. However, it's unclear how many of those 306,000 people followed through with the voter registration process after clicking.

Typically, celebrity endorsements usually have an insignificant effect on political campaigns — but Taylor Swift isn't a typical celebrity. In the off-year 2023 election, when voter turnout is usually less than in presidential and midterm elections, Swift's link to Vote.org in an Instagram Story resulted in 35,000 new voter registrations. The group said that was the highest number of new voter registrations since 2020.

"Our site was averaging 13,000 users every 30 minutes – a number that Taylor Swift would be proud of," Vote.org CEO Andrea Hailey told NPR at the time, referencing Swift's frequent use of the number 13.

The pop singer has only recently started leveraging her stardom for political purposes. In 2018, in the aftermath of Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh's sexual assault accusation by Christine Blasey Ford and subsequent confirmation, Swift posted to her Instagram account that she was actively choosing to be more politically engaged. She explicitly attributed her newfound activism to the prevalence of misogyny and sexism.

"I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country. I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG," she wrote. "I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent."

Swift's political activism has ruffled the feathers of Republicans. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) dismissed her endorsement of Harris on Fox News earlier Wednesday.

"We admire Taylor Swift's music, but I don't think most Americans... are gonna be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans," said Vance, who is the running mate of billionaire celebrity who used to live in a gold-plated penthouse.

The network itself has also cast aspersions on Swift's activism. In one segment about whether the shadow of a woman in a suit onstage with Swift was meant to represent Harris, Fox News host Harris Faulkner expressed her frustration with the pop singer's political views.

"If we're gonna pay that much money as consumers, you don't need to serve up politics for that," Faulkner said. "Why can't you go to a concert without that? She can vote any way she wants, she can talk about it offstage. When people pay to see you, just perform."

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