Celebrity Endorsements in the US Election: Do They Work?
Celebrity endorsement has become a recurring act in modern political theatre.
As the US election draws nearer, a great number of celebrities have spoken up for their preferred presidential candidate this year. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have received endorsements on social media platforms, brought musical guests to conventions, and been guests on celebrity podcasts. (Listen to Harris on Call Her Daddy here.) Perhaps what we see now are celebrities not just acting as entertainers, but becoming an extension of their fan’s moral, social, and political values. While this is an interesting trend, whether this can translate into measurable electoral impact is worth questioning.
Some see this as a positive; increasing the political role of celebrities embraces social media as a landscape for political advocacy, brings political matters into the mainstream, and makes political discourse more accessible in a nation which has a notoriously low voter participation rate at 31st out of 50 developed nations in the world. In a space where voters, especially young people, feel disassociated from the political process, hearing that your favourite celebrity has a preference for one candidate may make you inclined to feel the same.
The under-30s, which composes a majority of the fanbases for participating celebrities, is a key group for the upcoming election. Harris has 15 points over Donald Trump amongst the under-30s voting base. This is only half the advantage that Biden had over Trump in the same voting category during the 2020 election, meaning the Democratic Party still has much work to do.
Some political scholars are heavily critical of celebrity involvement in politics. They claim that celebrities are not qualified to judge complex political matters and serve to gain more from endorsing a candidate than the candidate themselves will do. Moreover, such endorsements oversimplify complex issues into headlines or catchphrases which are reduced to passing trends, rather than meaningful debate or conversation. Policy has never found much place in social media and as such, voters may come to prioritise image and charisma over substantial political issues.
The concept of celebrity endorsement is not new in the US. In 1960, Frank Sinatra, singer and actor, endorsed J.F.K. throughout his campaign, holding numerous fundraisers and turning his song ‘High Hopes’ into the campaign anthem. In the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, Oprah Winfrey endorsed Barack Obama. A survey which attempted to calculate the success of this concluded that Obama gained an additional one million votes out of more than 30 million cast. However, this was a primary contest rather than a general election, which leaves us still questioning whether celebrities can sway votes or merely prompt discussion.
The celebrity endorsement which has perhaps garnered most attention this election cycle came following the presidential debate in September, when Taylor Swift -the self-proclaimed ‘Childless Cat Lady’- posted on Instagram to make her 283 million followers aware of her intention to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Her fame most likely does not need to be elaborated on, as she has become somewhat of a household name and has amassed over a billion US dollars on her worldwide tour. The influence of her endorsement is particularly interesting in this election. While there has not been a study which finds the direct correlation between endorsements and changed votes, what is more important to this endorsement is its fostering of greater levels of discussion. Impressively, more than 300,000 new visitors went to vote.gov from the link in Swift’s Instagram post. This does not necessarily mean that therefore there are now that number of newly registered voters, but it can show an alignment with a recent Harvard study concluding that celebrity association drives more voters to the polls. Moreover, Swift’s endorsement and subsequent involvement from her fanbase has accumulated funds for voting movements. The cofounder of the Swifties for Kamala movement said, ‘Since forming on July 21, ‘Swifties for Kamala’ has raised over $213K for the Harris campaign and directed over $13,000 from our merch collaboration with Social Goods to voter-registration efforts.’ Again, what this stresses is not the shifting of attitudes that people may or may not have to a certain candidate because of a celebrity, but the large social influence that celebrities have which may call low-engagement voters into action.
Swift’s declaration has also prompted other celebrities to open up about how they will be voting in the upcoming election. Others include Oprah, who, in mid-September, attended the ‘Unite for America’ event that sought to encourage Harris in key states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan. Meanwhile, Charli XCX, a British singer who sparked the ‘Brat’ internet trend over the summer, Tweeted ‘kamala IS brat’, a phrase coined by the singer which refers to women who can choose their own path and set their own agenda. This endorsement was played upon by the Harris team as they changed their own X account (formerly known as Twitter) to the same green colour and font as the ‘Brat’ album cover. Furthermore, Harris is not the only one receiving and embracing this trend as Trump too has amassed many celebrity endorsements of his own. For instance, Hulk Hogan, while on stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, ripped off his shirt to reveal a ‘Trump-Vance’ shirt and called Trump the ‘greatest President of the United States’.
It may be that these endorsements will only garner yet more attention and engagement for the advocates themselves, but it is undeniable that growing celebrity involvement has certainly intensified conversation in an election where every vote counts.
Image courtesy of Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images, ©2024. Some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
