The same night of the presidential debate on ABC News between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, superstar Taylor Swift announced her support for the Democratic candidate on Instagram. “I think she is a talented and steady leader and I think we can achieve much more in this country if we are guided by calm and not chaos,” she told her 284 million followers on Instagram.
Donald Trump was asked about the issue immediately afterward. First, he said he “had no idea” about that support. And the next day he told Fox & Friends that he was not “a fan of Taylor Swift.” “She is a very liberal person, she always seems to support a Democrat and will probably pay a price for it in the market,” he added. Finally, he landed on another of his traditional passionate messages: “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT.”
When questioned about this, the response of the Republican vice presidential candidate, — one of the most unpopular in modern U.S. history, even below Sarah Palin —, was as expected as everything he touches: “I don’t think most Americans are going to be influenced by a multimillionaire celebrity fundamentally disconnected from the interests and problems of the majority of Americans,” he said, forgetting in passing that in August his now admired paradigm had published on Truth Social an AI-generated image of Swift herself urging people to vote for him. And also photos of several girls, also generated by AI, wearing sweaters reading “Swifties for Trump”… “I accept!” Trump wrote then. Another plain and simple case of the short-legged lies we are used to.
That is why in her message of support for Harris, Taylor Swift felt the need to take the weeds by the root: “Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run…. It really conjured up my fears around AI and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter.” She then finished with an apothegm: “The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”
The position of Trump and his surrogate is a way of trying to ignore one of the things that most concerns them: the numbers, especially when they found out that Swift’s post had directed thousands of new voters to the vote.gov site, where eligible Americans can register to vote. According to press reports, more than 405,000 souls clicked on that link in the 24 hours after the artist endorsed the Democrats.
This is an influx that, according to one expert, could translate into votes for Harris. “What we saw was this really massive increase. We’re calling it the Swift effect,” he stressed. He added that according to data collected since 2020, about 80% of voters who register late end up voting. You don’t need a degree in political science to realize another of the reasons the Republican candidate duo had: in the event of a close election, only a small amount of that number of fans would be needed to change the results in a swing state. And in particular, they are bothered and worried by the singer’s appeal among young people, one of the decisive forces in this electoral cycle.
“Younger voters have been key in recent elections and could again be in November,” one report reminds us. In 2020, turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds exceeded 50%, higher than in 2008, when Barack Obama won. Coincidentally, a new Gallup study highlighted the shift toward liberalism among 18- to 29-year-old voters, who not only identify as liberals in larger numbers than in previous years, but also hold significantly more left-wing positions on issues such as abortion rights, the environment, gun control, and race relations.
There is a third reason: Trump and his people know well that celebrity endorsements count. And from the start, they don’t have much hype in the world of artists and musicians, unlike their Democratic opponents, backed by figures such as Ariana Grande, Cardi B, John Legend, Charli XCX, Barbra Streisand, Beyoncé, Dolly Parton, Carole King, James Taylor, Demi Lovato, Foo Fighters, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez…and all those who participated in the recently held Democratic Convention, from Stevie Wonder to Pink. That is also why Trump and Vance are trying to downplay Swift’s move while, once again, they are socializing constructs according to which “this support will not have significant repercussions on the elections.”
Nor would it be important, in that logic, the television advertisement that Harris’ campaign has just launched with the song “When The Party’s Over,” by Billie Eilish, with the theme of reproductive rights. Recently, the 22-year-old pop star and her brother supported Kamala Harris in a message addressed to their 123 million followers on Instagram. And they made the following call: “Today is National Voter Registration Day and we ask you to join us…and vote early like we do.”
The reality seems to be moving in a different direction than imagined by the Trumpist high command, which has seen the fire of its candidate go out after that paroxysmal, voluntaristic and theocratic Republican Convention. And because the face-to-face presidential debate with Joe Biden, and the assassination attempt last July in Butler, Pennsylvania, gave him the oxygen he no longer has today. In the last of those televised events, says an analyst, the new opponent “wore him down like an experienced prosecutor would do with a defendant in a trial.”
This downward trend has been completed by the incident with the Haitian community of Springfield, accused by Vance and Trump of eating the residents’ pets, claims roundly denied by local Republican officials and the subject of abundant memes and mockery on social media. With this, Donald Trump and his people have ratified, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, their belonging to that space that is located between the manipulation and racism of their fake news.
The point is that this accumulation, seen so far in its broadest lines, does not fall into the void, but rather affects the polls, which are certainly not homogeneous, but draw an upward trend for the Democratic candidate, even when sometimes their results do not exceed the margin of error in terms of swing states.
For example, a Quinnipiac poll published last Wednesday showed that Harris has an advantage in the three critical states of the “blue wall”: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In Michigan she surpasses Trump 50% vs. 45%. In Pennsylvania, with its all-important 19 electoral votes, it’s 51% vs. 45%, the strongest position of any previous poll. In Wisconsin, where 10 electoral votes are at stake, the line is the thinnest: 49.5% vs. 47.5%.
On the other hand, independent voters are a must-win for anyone who wants to take home the prize in those swing states. In Pennsylvania, for example, the last two elections were decided by fewer than 100,000 votes. “That’s the group you have to pay attention to. You have to win them over to win,” said Berwood Yost, director of the Opinion Research and the Floyd Institute for Public Policy. A survey conducted by Franklin & Marshall College of independent voters in Pennsylvania between September 4 and 15 shows that the Democratic advantage among this group of voters is 13 points (48% vs. 35%).
And if you look at other decisions, the results are clear and distinct. A very recent Howard University poll shows that in the seven swing states a large majority of African-American voters support Kamala Harris. 82% said they would vote for her, compared to only 12% who support Trump.
Nationally, on September 11, the day after the debate, Kamala Harris had a point and a half lead over herFeatF opponent (right now that lead is 3.3 points).
These trends are being countered by opposition strategists with various moves, one of them being the idea of a second attempt to assassinate Trump, this time at his golf facilities in West Palm Beach, even though the Secret Service has established that the former president’s life was never at risk.
It seems that the margin of error of the polls is beginning to be exceeded by the Democratic candidate. But we will know that more firmly in a couple of weeks.
Author
Alfredo Prieto
