There weren\u2019t many things that could have diverted the political world\u2019s attention from Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019s dominant performance against Donald Trump in Tuesday night\u2019s debate. But at 11 p.m., Taylor Swift managed it.<\/p>\n
Her endorsement of the Democratic nominee wasn\u2019t surprising, as such. She endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 and has endorsed other Democrats in the past. It was so expected, in fact, that people were surprised when rumors about her performing at the Democratic convention didn\u2019t come to fruition. But \u201cunsurprising\u201d doesn\u2019t mean \u201cnot impactful.\u201d And by at least one immediate measure, the endorsement had impact.<\/p>\n
As has been the case in the past, Swift\u2019s endorsement was a careful one. Posted on Instagram, it encouraged her followers \u2014 all 283 million of them \u2014 to look into the candidates for themselves. But then she explained why she backed Harris, ending the post with a pointed description of herself as a \u201cchildless cat lady.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her most forceful plug was one she\u2019d offered before: that her followers should register to vote. Google data suggests that this pitch had an effect, correlating with an uptick in the number of people headed to the search engine to figure out how to do so.<\/p>\n
The biggest spike Tuesday came about halfway through the debate, at about the point that Trump was being asked about his role in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Search interest tapered off as the debate wound down. And then, when Swift\u2019s endorsement dropped, it jumped back up.<\/p>\n
How do we know this was a function of Swift? Well, we don\u2019t specifically, except that the surge overlapped with a big spike in searches for Swift herself. Google\u2019s data also indicates that the top search related to the term was \u201ctaylor swift voter registration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mind you, the graph above isn\u2019t to scale. It simply shows the peak interest in both terms over the three-hour period displayed. If we show search interest for Swift and voter registration relative to each other, there\u2019s no contest.<\/p>\n
In August, as a pro-Harris group of Swift fans got geared up, we looked at the way in which the pop megastar was better positioned to have a political impact now than in past election cycles. For one thing, she\u2019s way more famous than she used to be. For another, her fan base of young women has, like all of us, gotten older \u2014 and many or most are now able to vote. For a third, as we noted then, Swift is viewed more positively now than she was in 2018 when she offered her endorsement to a Democratic Senate candidate.<\/p>\n
Even among Republicans.<\/p>\n
Trump, who was already having a bad night by the time Swift\u2019s endorsement landed, is doing his best to take the development in stride. On Wednesday morning, he called in to Fox News\u2019s \u201cFox & Friends,\u201d a show on which he was once a weekly contributor. The hosts gently probed Trump for his reaction to Swift\u2019s move; he suggested, sort of randomly, that he preferred the wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.<\/p>\n
Trump reacts to Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris: \u2018Well, I actually like Mrs. Mahomes much better \u2026 I was not a Taylor Swift fan \u2026 she\u2019ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace.\u2019 pic.twitter.com\/J9Nk56nhEB<\/p>\n
\u2014 philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) September 11, 2024<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Then he made a prediction: Swift would \u201cprobably pay a price for it in the marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s possible, sure. It is also possible that the result of Swift\u2019s endorsement will be that Trump pays a price for it on Election Day.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
There weren\u2019t many things that could have diverted the political world\u2019s attention from Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019s dominant performance against Donald Trump in Tuesday night\u2019s debate. But at 11 p.m., Taylor Swift managed it. Her endorsement of the Democratic nominee wasn\u2019t surprising, as such. She endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 and has endorsed other Democrats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9366,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}