Let's Talk About The Taylor Swift Effect
Why the 2024 USA Election could be swayed by a motivated youth.
There is no doubt that Taylor Swift is the biggest celebrity currently. Taylor and her "Eras Tour" are consistently selling out massive stadiums around the world and are likely to go down as the biggest concert tour in history.
Taylor has also been getting attention as she started dating Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce, making her appearance known at most Chiefs games this NFL season. Much to the protest of the right-wing MAGA crowd that thinks the left and leftist figures are intruding on their lives. I never knew the right had a lock on sports and that no leftist is able to like a sport, but I digress.
Taylor has also made headlines this past year that during her USA shows, she has placed voter registration booths, and she has posted on her social media for her fans and followers to go to vote.org to register to vote if they are of voting age. This caused Vote.org’s website to crash as they saw over 1000% of the normal traffic when the post was live.
There is no doubt that Taylor has a younger fan base, and she is using her status to drive voter registration and motivate a new voting block into the democratic process. In 2020, Taylor endorsed Joe Biden and scolded Donald Trump. It is expected that in 2024, the same will happen given the effort Taylor has made in getting people registered to vote.
But how much can someone like Taylor Swift sway an election? Does she really have that much pull to change the outcome of a general election in the USA? The answer to that question is very much yes. Swift has such a large fan base that she has the ability to sway an election. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at some numbers.
Let’s start with Pennsylvania. Biden won PA by roughly 80,000 votes. In May of 2023, Taylor Swift did three sold-out shows at Lincoln Financial Field. Total attendance was +/- 202,000 people. According to Business Insider, 3/4 of Swift fans are of voting age, so that’s 151,500 people. A few months later, she did two sold-out shows at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh. 136,000 people attended, 102k that are of voting age.
Together alone, the number of voting age attendees doubles the margin of Biden’s victory.
Moving on to big old Florida. This is where it gets interesting. Biden lost Florida by 371,686 votes. Swift played three shows in Tampa totaling 207,000 people, 155,250 of voting age. She also has three upcoming shows in Miami in October, three weeks before the general election. Total voting age attendance, 145,000 people. Adding the two together, we get 300,000 people. That alone is making this a much closer contest than expected. Add in a few more votes from those who couldn’t attend the concerts but still like Taylor’s message? You've got yourself a very close election.
I really think the Swift effect is going to be a real thing this coming election in the USA. I said it on Twitter that we should never underestimate the power of a politically motivated mega-celebrity. She endorsed Biden in 2020, and now in 2024, it is expected she will do the same. Four years of more voters entering the voting rolls and older, more traditional Republican voters passing away.
These are all very rough numbers and do not account for the potential Republican Swift fan, especially those in more red states. I didn’t conduct any simulations with these factored in. This is all just rough math. But rough math is a great way to start thinking about the potential spoiler effect that Taylor might bring to Trump in 2024.
Rolling Stone reported today that Trump Aids are closely watching her voting registration campaign and preparing to go on the attack if she were to endorse the Biden campaign.
This is going to be an interesting election to watch as this is the first time in a while where a mega-celeb like Taylor Swift has entered into a politically motivated campaign, especially one during a turbulent time in the United States.
Election day in the United States is November 5, 2024.