‘Swifties’ to the polls? Eyes on Taylor ahead of presidential election

As Joe Biden’s poll numbers flag ahead of next year’s election, it might seem obvious for the president to look to the pop-star billionaire who endorsed him in 2020, and whose every move is endlessly catalogued by US media.
It’s a fact his campaign knows all too well.
“Please do not tell us that we need a Taylor Swift strategy. We are tracking,” quipped a recent communications job advertisement for his 2024 re-election bid.
And yet, in the highly polarised US political and media landscape, everything the superstar singer does or doesn’t do is likely to invite a simultaneous deluge of praise and firestorm of fierce criticism.
Swift, recently named Time magazine’s Person of the Year, is viewed favourably by 70% of Americans — the sort of numbers that any president would kill for.
Perhaps none more than Biden, whose approval ratings recently dipped to 39% — the lowest of any recent US leader at this point in their presidency, according to polling firm Gallup, and also the fifth time his ratings fell below 40% in this year alone.
Swift’s 2020 endorsement of Biden, and her knack for using nonpartisan campaigns to register her “Swiftie” superfans to vote, doesn’t mean that politics comes without scrutiny for the superstar.
As America has descended into hyperpartisanship, the You Belong With Me singer’s previously apolitical stance increasingly came under fire — no matter if the frenzy was fed mostly by rumour and on social media.
At the same time, staying silent during the 2016 election bothered Swift personally, she would later say.
“These aren’t your dad’s Republicans,” she says in a 2020 documentary, as members of her team press her to stay out of politics ahead of the 2018 election, warning it could “halve the number of people that come to your next tour.”
Nevertheless, she came out of the woods to endorse the Democratic Senate candidate in the state of Tennessee, where the Donald Trump-endorsed Republican ended up winning.
As the country’s division under the Trump presidency continued to pose a challenge to her — and other celebrities’ — carefully curated, mass-appealing images, she endorsed Biden, castigating Trump for “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism.”
The key difference between then and now, perhaps, is just how much Swift — already a megastar — has seen her stature grow as she breaks music records, graces magazine covers and sees the press follow every detail of her increasingly public personal life.
Her fans are mostly young women who have come of age in America’s hyperpolarised political era — and make up a key Democratic voting bloc.
But Biden’s numbers have dipped among the country’s youth, especially as his administration has staunchly backed Israel in its war against Hamas.
Swift, meanwhile, recently attended a fundraiser for aid for Palestinians, 20,000 of whom have died amid the conflict in Gaza begun.
According to a recent Harvard poll, the percentage of Americans aged 18-29 who “definitely” plan on voting for president has decreased from 57% to 49%, compared to those surveyed at this time in 2020.
This is where Swift might have an impact.
“I don’t think the way these work is that when people see, oh, Taylor Swift endorsed Joe Biden, and they say, ‘Well, that’s who I’m going to vote for’,” Matthew Harris, a political science professor at Park University, told AFP.
“It’s more along the lines of her ability to mobilise people, to encourage people to register to vote,” he added, noting that “these are people who may already be predisposed, or likely to vote, for Joe Biden.”
And in a tight election, as many predict 2024 will be, “those suburban areas...are really kind of the swing areas of American politics.”
The often tight-lipped Swift has already quietly given a nod toward Biden’s 2024 run, approving her song Only The Young to be used in a pro-Biden ad in October.
There’s clearly no bad blood between Swift and Biden, but the president’s entreaties to US youth might go over better if he could remember the name of America’s most popular musical artist.
The 81-year-old last month mixed up Swift with pop star of yore Britney Spears. Such a gaffe could perhaps make him relatable to the average Swiftie’s parents — and after all, they vote, too.