Who will Taylor Swift vote for? The American superstar ended the suspense on Tuesday by giving her support to Kamala Harris just after the debate between the two presidential candidates.
In an Instagram post that immediately went viral, with 3.6 million likes in just over an hour, the singer said she chose the Democrat because she “fights for the causes and rights I believe in.”
“I think she is a gifted and strong leader,” Swift added in a lengthy message, which she signed “old cat lady” (” childless cat lady ”) and embellished with a photo of her with her cat.
A direct reference to a controversial statement, full of misogynistic clichés, by Republican candidate Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, targeting childless women.
While she didn’t explicitly invite “Swifties” — her fans known for their fervor in defending her and following her trends on social media — to imitate her, she did call on everyone to “do your own research on the issues and where these candidates stand on the topics that matter to you.”
“Courageous act”
With Taylor Swift, the vice president received a significant support, even if it had been hoped for for a long time. Rumors, ultimately false, had even announced the participation of the world star in the Democratic convention, mid-August in Chicago.
“I am incredibly grateful for Taylor Swift,” Harris’ running mate Tim Walz said on MSNBC. “This is the kind of courageous act that America needs. When someone like Taylor Swift speaks out so clearly, it’s an opportunity.”
The governor of Minnesota took the opportunity to send a message to the “Swifties”: “kamalaharris.com, go ahead, come give us a hand!”
Donald Trump, for his part, was less pleased.
“I wasn’t a Taylor Swift fan […]. She always seems to support a Democrat, and she’ll probably pay the price for it in the music sales market,” the Republican candidate said Wednesday in a very early morning interview on Fox News.
The 34-year-old singer has so far been rather cautious on political issues: in 2016, she remained silent during the presidential election won by Donald Trump, but gave her support to Democratic candidates in elections in her home state of Tennessee in 2018.
She later spoke out in support of Joe Biden in 2020 and advocated for open messages towards LGBT+ communities in her songs, also condemning the decision of the US Supreme Court, with a conservative majority, to overturn the guarantee of the right to abortion at the federal level in the United States.
“Be very transparent”
Republicans and Democrats alike have sought to capitalize on the artist’s immense popularity, as he began his career in country music, a genre particularly popular with conservatives.
In mid-August, Donald Trump shared images on social media, which were allegedly created by artificial intelligence (AI), suggesting that the singer was supporting him.
In his post on his Truth Social platform, which shows Taylor Swift dressed as Uncle Sam asking her fans to vote for Trump, the former president wrote: “I accept!”
The artist or his entourage had not reacted to the publication.
But in her post Tuesday, Swift said she was informed that she had been “falsely attributed support for Donald Trump’s candidacy through the use of AI.”
This situation, which “combined my fears about AI and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” “led me to the conclusion that I had to be very transparent about my real choices during this election as a voter,” the star explained to her tens of millions of subscribers.
She demonstrated her influence in September 2023, by posting a message on Instagram inviting her followers to go to the Vote.org platform to register to vote.
The organization had recorded more than 35,000 new registrations that day, a 23% jump from the same day a year earlier.
