"Although her supporters are more likely to be Democrats (according to a recent YouGov poll) she is popular enough that she has support across the political spectrum. About a third of voters who didn’t support either Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris said they liked her. It’s possible some of those voters — a sliver, to be sure — may be swayed by the endorsement."
"It's not just young people Swift is in a position to sway. Many of her fans belong to another critical demographic: white women, over half of whom voted red in both 2016 and 2020."
"Voters from Michigan, Texas and Tennessee reacted to Swift's support of Harris, at times with regret over how much sway she has. The pop star has supported Democrats in the past, so her position wasn't surprising, but her superstardom and massive following still made her endorsement headline news around the world. "I'm so sorry to hear about the Taylor Swift announcement, because young people, I don't think, are that intelligent about what's going on," said Sheri in Birmingham, Michigan."
"'Celebrities draw increased engagement, increased attention, and they increase conversation,' said Ashley Spillane, the author of a new study from Harvard’s Kennedy School on celebrity engagement in politics — focusing on civic participation. 'And no matter the political party or the candidate, there is a real hunger to be affiliated with the celebrities that can do that.'"
"The fervor with which people have speculated about what Swift would do is striking, considering that celebrity political endorsements appear to be a mixed bag with relatively narrow effects. As Li Zhou has reported for Vox, celebrities can be good at getting people to pay attention to a race, or at heightening excitement about a candidate that people are already interested in, but they’re not necessarily good at changing people’s minds across party lines."
"Celebrity endorsements are unlikely to change voters’ minds. But they may boost turnout."
"'So when she comes out the night of the debate, as a young woman supporting Harris,' ESPN's Stephen A. Smith said, 'it’s probably an incredibly profound thing to have happened. The Swifties, they’re gonna gravitate to what she wants to some degree.'"
"The only candidate in the United States to have received an endorsement from a celebrity as powerful and as well loved as Taylor Swift is Beto O’Rourke, who was treated on Election Day in 2018 to an image of Beyoncé wearing one of his campaign’s signature trucker hats. It was a stamp of approval in his race against the most loathed politician in America, Ted Cruz, from, as he puts it, 'perhaps the most famous person to ever emerge from the state of Texas.'"
"One can also imagine that Swift and her team will have voter-registration booths at her upcoming U.S. tour dates – her next stop has her at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Oct. 18-20, and though Florida has been reliably red the past couple of election cycles, the presence of a referendum on the state’s six-week abortion ban, and recent polls showing Harris two or three points behind Trump in the Sunshine State, could make things interesting down there."
The Pennsylvania native who twisted the knife into Trump’s running mate JD Vance by signing her post as a “Childless Cat Lady,” and who is famous for her songs of revenge against her exes, clearly respected Harris’ efforts to craft a breakup song between Trump’s decades of misogyny and the America he wants to keep dominating. Swift’s endorsement came after the nation heard Harris’ remake of “I Knew You Were Trouble (Kamala’s Version).”