Are you ready for this? What a Taylor Swift endorsement means for Kamala Harris

As the US presidential debate came to an end on Wednesday, commentators and journalists gathered and took a breath.

But then Taylor Swift came along. The pop superstar posted her support for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz's slate of candidates on social media. In her speech at the MTV Video Music Awards, she then reminded the public to register to vote.

People listened. Within 24 hours, more than 400,000 people visited the voter registration website.

It's always tempting to question the relevance of celebrity political endorsements. After all, endorsing products and brands is perfectly normal. So does a political endorsement from Taylor Swift really matter?

That's true. It's especially important to young white women, who make up a large part of her dedicated fan base. Mobilizing these women could have a big impact on who turns out to vote – and ultimately, who wins the close presidential race.

Why Taylor Swift?

Harris' campaign has already attracted a number of prominent supporters, most notably Charli XCX's early comments that Kamala was a brat.

Beyoncé did not comment explicitly on this, but she gave her tacit consent by granting Harris the right to use her song “Freedom” in promotional material.

Swift's explicit support adds a new layer: It's not just about supporting a singer, but a cultural phenomenon.

After the European leg of the Eras Tour (the most successful tour of all time), Swift has proven that she can mobilize and inspire millions of people. The Democrats would want to take advantage of that.

She has 284 million followers on Instagram, a target audience that campaign strategists can only dream of.

This isn't the first time Swift has spoken out on political issues, having done so during the 2018 midterm elections when she urged her followers not to vote for Tennessee Republican Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn.

Blackburn was ultimately elected, but Swift remained politically active. Last year, she used Voter Registration Day to call on people to register to vote. More than 35,000 people responded to this call.

Style and substance

It is not surprising that Swift campaigned vigorously for the Democrats, especially given the focus of her campaign on reproductive rights and minority rights.

Especially since 2019, Swift has been championing these issues in her music. These are issues she shares with many Swifties.

That's why support is so important. Swifties are a group already ready to support Harris and Walz. The biggest challenge is getting them to vote. If the goal is to mobilize a lot of people, Swift is certainly the person who can help do that.

But those who vote for Democrats do not do so just because their favorite singer told them to. They do so because they themselves believe in the substance of the policies being proposed.

When one in three women in the US lives in a state that either completely bans or severely restricts abortion, the impact on these women's lives cannot be underestimated. These are issues that are very important to young women and LGBTQI+ communities.

Strategic timing

Swift's choice of words was deliberate. While she explained why she would support Harris, she did not directly tell anyone to vote Democrat. Instead, she encouraged people to get informed and register to vote.

This level of separation offers Swift the opportunity to credibly deny the inevitable attacks from Republicans. While the Trump campaign tries to paint the opposition as a bunch of rich, white East Coast elites, avoiding the direct call for Swifties to vote for Harris weakens that attack. It's also entirely in keeping with Swift's approach to her fan base in general, and implicitly supports Harris' argument that women should be able to make their own choices.

On the other hand, the timing may not have been quite as advantageous for both sides.

Harris would certainly accept an endorsement of Swift in any form, but one can imagine that Democratic strategists would want to create more distance between the endorsement and the debate. That way, they could use the debate as a stronghold and later treat Swift's endorsement as a separate issue.

The reasons for the announcement right after the debate are unclear, but perhaps Swift wanted to demonstrate her independence from the Democratic Party machine. According to speculation, the timing seems to have been her choice.

Of course, the party did not miss this opportunity. Friendship bracelets, which went on sale a few minutes after the support, sold out almost immediately.

An Eras Tour atmosphere

An interesting part of Swift's contribution is the explicit mention of Walz and his political priorities.

Walz brought a kind of jovial father character to Harris' campaign, regularly telling stories about taking care of your neighbors and having the freedom to love who you love.

In many ways, Walz on the Eras Tour is a father supporting his daughters, embodying a different kind of masculinity: one that isn't intimidated by strong, successful women and isn't afraid to shake them off in a glitzy, girl-dominated environment.

The Eras Tour was full of such examples of community building. It showed the power of community, spontaneous friendship and caring for one another, even when you don't know each other.

While the strength of Trump's electorate shows that there is still broad support for a politics of anger, many Americans are tired of being frightened and threatened with violence.

Before Harris' campaign, there was no clear alternative energy. Now there is, and it is not unlike the energy that thousands of girls and women (and their fathers) bring to stadiums to see Taylor Swift perform.

This could have a significant impact on the outcome of the election. While it is always difficult to determine exactly what makes an election, in some swing states a Harris victory could come down to just a few thousand votes.

An extremely close race is taking place in Swift's home state of Pennsylvania. If Swift can motivate even a small portion of people to vote who otherwise wouldn't have participated, the impact could be enormous.