Pop music megastar Taylor Swift is once again jumping into politics with a Super Tuesday message urging fans to get out and vote in their state primary elections.
The sometimes-controversial singer took to her Instagram Stories on Tuesday with an election day message to her 282 million followers.
“Today, March 5, is the presidential primary on Tennessee and 16 other states and territories,” she wrote in her message.
“I wanted to remind you guys to vote the people who most represent YOU into power. If you haven’t already, make a plan to vote today.
“Whether you’re in Tennessee of somewhere else in the US, check your polling places and times at vote.org.”
The group Vote.org bills itself as a non-partisan operation, however, it has been criticized by the conservative think tank Capital Research Center as favoring Democrats.
It was founded in 2008 as Long Distance Voter by Debra Cleaver, an advocate of the use of absentee ballots, according to a 2022 Time magazine report about a wrongful termination lawsuit Cleaver filed against the group. Cleaver was fired in 2019, according to Time.
Cleaver had renamed the group Vote.org in 2015 after receiving “a substantial funding grant” from the Knight Foundation, according to Time.
While Swift’s message on Tuesday was essentially non-partisan, she has explicitly endorsed Democrats before.
Should celebrities stay out of politics?
In 2018, she endorsed Democrat Phil Bredesen, who lost his U.S. Senate race in Tennessee to Republican Marsha Blackburn. Swift also endorsed incumbent Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper who won re-election. Then, in 2020, she endorsed Joe Biden for president.
That latter endorsement has given Biden hope that she will again weigh in on his side for 2024. In January, news reports maintained that the Biden administration hoped to use the power of Taylor Swift’s reach with her millions of fans to flog the Biden re-election campaign.
“The biggest and most influential endorsement target is Ms. Swift, 34, the pop sensation and N.F.L. enthusiast, who can move millions of supporters with an Instagram post or a mid-concert aside,” The New York Times reported.
The Times report highlighted that Biden is desperate to have Swift sign on with him, writing, “She endorsed Mr. Biden in 2020 and, last year, a single Instagram post of hers led to 35,000 new voter registration.”
“Fund-raising appeals from Ms. Swift could be worth millions of dollars for Mr. Biden,” the article noted.
Taylor Swift could sway 2024 election outcome, new poll finds with a FIFTH of voters ‘likely’ to back candidate endorsed by singer https://t.co/WQ70VmcALE pic.twitter.com/q6g7TfTx9M
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) January 28, 2024
Swift’s Super Tuesday message to fans was no full-throated appeal to vote for Democrats, though it is likely that it would benefit the Democratic Party mostly anyway, since she appeals to a mostly liberal, female block of voters.
Indeed, Vote.org noted in 2022 that Swift helped register more than 35,000 voters on National Voter Registration Day — an annual event on the fourth Tuesday in September. The group said that it was its largest number of registrations since 2020, according to ABC News.
Primary elections are being held in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia. One territory, American Samoa, will also vote on March 5.
Democrats in Iowa are also participating in a mail-in election that ends on Tuesday, according to ABC News.
The event is called “Super Tuesday” because it is the only time during a primary season when such a large number of states hold their primaries on the same day.
Most states close their polls close at 7 or 8 p.m. local time.
