On Aug. 20, Taylor Swift drew over 90,000 people to Wembley Stadium for the final show of the Eras Tour European leg. Three weeks later, she drew over 400,000 people to a voter registration website.
Advertisement
Following the presidential debate on Sept. 10, Swift took to Instagram to announce to her 284 million followers that she would be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming election. She also encouraged people to register to vote, and her corresponding story shared a link to vote.gov, which directs users to their state-specific election websites. The website is managed by the General Services Administration, whose spokesperson announced 405,999 users had visited through Swift’s link in the 24 hours after she posted it, according to CBS News.
As the presidential candidates prepare for their biggest performance on Nov. 5, many celebrities have rallied in the wings. From singer Billie Eilish announcing her support for Harris on Instagram to WWE wrestler Hulk Hogan calling former President Donald Trump a hero at the Republican National Convention, Hollywood’s biggest stars have been speaking up for what they believe in.
But can celebrity endorsements really influence the outcome of this election?
According to John Shaw, director of SIU’s Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, it’s a double-edged sword.
Advertisement*
“Celebrities, they can, as I say, generate interest, raise money, do events, hold fundraising events,” Shaw said. “So I think, as a candidate, if you can get a celebrity endorsement, it’s good, [but] you got to be a little careful, because some of them are not always hewing to the script.”
He said celebrities can often say things that do not follow the message a politician is promoting, and many are labeled controversial.
“I think the bottom line is, if you can get celebrity endorsements, I think it’s good…They can be helpful,” he said. “But I don’t think you should base your campaign on or, you know, devote an extraordinary amount of time and energy trying to corral celebrity endorsements.”
Sakshi Bhati, a professor of public relations and leadership in communication studies at SIU, said endorsements from celebrities can “go south quickly.”
“There’s this one big con that if this celebrity has a bad rep in the media today, something that they did in recent past that has changed their image and how people see them, and they have done endorsement in the recent past, that can also negatively impact the endorsement,” she said.
Bhati pointed to the recent arrests of rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs. Since Combs was arrested on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges, his past political connections have resurfaced. An article from USA Today highlighted interactions from both presidential candidates, including a 2012 video from a reality game show, in which Trump called Combs a “good friend” and “good guy,” and a 2020 tweet from Harris, in which she thanked Combs for hosting a town hall on racial inequities and health disparities.
Bhati said the candidates have “really good PR teams,” however.
“They know how to get through such hard times when the celebrity endorsements can go south,” she said. “They know how to handle it, and they’re well prepared for handling such situations. They’re always ready to do some crisis management on it if their endorsements go south.”
The Daily Egyptian surveyed 41 people who self-identified as students, staff, alumni or community members and between the ages of 18 and 64 to see what impact they believe celebrity endorsements have on themselves and their communities. Participants were asked how likely they are to change their vote due to a celebrity they like endorsing a candidate they do not like, as well as how likely they are to change their vote due to a celebrity they dislike endorsing a candidate they like.
In both instances, approximately 88% of participants said they were very unlikely to change their opinion. Yet Ava Steffens, secretary of SIU’s chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America, said she believes celebrity endorsements can have an impact on those who are not leaning toward a specific candidate.
“I think if there’s someone who doesn’t really have, like, established views, they’re kind of just more in the middle, has like a combination of both right wing and left wing views, I think they would be a little bit more easily influenced by a PR strategy,” she said.
Additionally, the survey asked respondents if they trust celebrity endorsements more than, less than or the same as endorsements from activists and other political figures. 73.2% of participants said they trusted celebrities less, while 24.4% said they trusted them the same, and only 2.4% said they trusted them more.
Shaw said celebrity endorsements can sometimes send out “a message of elitism and exclusion.”
“For maybe people in middle America, they might be seen as part of this kind of elite culture, you know, wealthy and kind of self-indulgent, which is very distant from our needs,” he said. “It can almost be a little alienating.”
Hannah Connolly, who serves as Student Trustee for the SIU Board of Trustees, offered a different perspective.
“People don’t like to trust politicians or activists, because there’s always an agenda,” she said. “Whereas with a celebrity, everything is put out on social media, and you feel like you know them. Even though it’s very superficial…you’re more likely to trust them because [they] don’t feel like a politician who’s gonna make a decision that might hurt you in the end.”
Survey participants were also asked how strongly they agree or disagree with the following statement: Celebrities should remain neutral when it comes to elections and politics.
Only 29% of survey respondents agreed, while nearly half disagreed.
“I think it is a good thing for artists to, in my personal view, talk about political and social issues, because they do have such a wide audience, and they do have such a wide influence,” Steffens said, adding that doing so can make artists “seem a little bit more in touch.”
Linda Flowers, president of the Carbondale Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said she thinks it is important that “we all speak up.”
“I think it’s important for all of us, because ‘I’m a celebrity,’ for instance, does that mean I lose my right as an American citizen who feels the election is important, that I lose my right to speak out?” she said.
She said the organization believes it is our duty as citizens to “be involved.”
“We’re not concerned with registering if you’re Democrat, Republican, who you’re going to vote for, but we think it’s important that we all get involved, because it’s our civic responsibility,” she said.
Flowers said there was not a specific celebrity she was pleased to see endorsing candidates, although “the more the merrier.”
“They all have different audiences, different outreach to different populations,” she said.
Many media outlets have recognized the impact certain celebrities can have on certain demographics. Julia Reinstein of ABC News said Swift could sway white women. Jesús Rodríguez and Sabrina Rodriguez noted the influence Bad Bunny could have on Puerto Rican and Latino voters in an article for the Washington Post.
Steffens said it depends on the artist and their audience. She brought up Chappell Roan, a singer-songwriter with a large audience of LGBTQ+ fans.
“She is outspoken about her views and her beliefs and what she wants and what she wants in a president,” Steffens said. “She has such a large audience of LGBTQ people that I think it would make sense for her to promote a candidate, or a political figure, or an issue that is in support of LGBTQ rights, because that’s her whole thing. That’s her audience’s whole thing.”
Roan recently spoke about politics in an interview with The Guardian, mentioning that she encourages people to “vote small” and for what’s happening in their city. However, she also said she did not “feel pressured to endorse someone” as “there’s problems on both sides.”
Roan’s statement received backlash online, and she later took to TikTok to clarify her words. On Sept. 25, she revealed she would be voting for Harris, but is “not settling for what has been offered.”
From a PR standpoint, Bhati recognized this as a “mini crisis.”
“People who actively are a fan, now that she has said that, will continue to dig up dirt from the past about their identity,” she said. “And PR teams always are trying to protect the celebrities or people that they’re working [for] from that to happen, so they have to come with cleaner statements.”
She added, “She’s showing support, and she’s taken a stance on who she’s voting for at this point, but it happens all the time. It’s just, in this political mess, people are trying to also protect themselves. They’re trying to be candid as much as possible and be more neutral but they also know, and their PR teams know, that their voice has a lot of impact.”
In terms of impact, Shaw said he believes it is unlikely that celebrity endorsements will sway the outcome of the election.
“I don’t think it’s going to have a huge impact. It’s not going to shift the polls dramatically…It could energize some young voters. Could give some people, you know, a little bit more interest in politics,” he said.
He emphasized that endorsements “might be more important during primaries, in which you have candidates who are not that different,” calling back to 2008, when television personality Oprah Winfrey endorsed Barack Obama over Hilary Clinton.
“When she waded in and endorsed Obama, that was seen as a big moment…There have been several very rigorous studies of this, and they tend to believe that…Oprah’s endorsement might have given him, like, a million votes in the Democratic primaries,” he said.
Connolly said that at the end of the day, when people find themselves in the voting booth, she doesn’t think celebrities will be on their minds.
“I think it’s more of a decision coming from you and what your interests are and what your priorities are,” she said.
Connolly, Flowers, Shaw, Bhati and Steffens all offered a similar sentiment to those who are voting in this upcoming election: do your research and stay informed.
“There is very, very good information out there, but you need to find it,” Shaw said. “…So go to a trusted source…and as you evaluate candidates, make sure what you know is actually truthful.”
Advertisement
