Kamala Harris' Celebrity Endorsements Didn't Matter. Can They Shift Voters?
Vice President Kamala Harris ' failure to win the presidency has called into question the Democrats ' tactics, including the amplification of celebrity endorsements that seemed to make little impact on the final result.
Harris picked up momentum early on when she had a tacit endorsement from pop star Charli XCX, prompting a week of pundits and news programs talking about "BRAT" and the meaning of the pop culture moment that the message had generated.
The trend continued over the following 90 days as Harris received endorsements from a bevy of celebrities, including Taylor Swift , Megan Thee Stallion, Bruce Springsteen, George Clooney, Billie Eilish , Cardi B, Ariana Grande, Lizzo, Mark Hamill and Lebron James , among others.
President-elect Donald Trump also received his share of celebrity endorsements, such as actor Kevin Sorbo, Hulk Hogan, NASCAR star Danica Patrick, YouTuber Jake Paul, UFC CEO Dana White and podcast star Joe Rogan .
However, the Democrats touted the power and impact that such endorsements would have on their campaign. Most notably, news outlets amplified that when Taylor Swift endorsed Harris and urged her fans to make sure they were registered to vote, more than 400,000 people did so.
New York Post features columnist Kirsten Fleming hit out at the Harris campaign and the celebrities that backed it, arguing that Harris "said a few words and then let the famous person do the heavy lifting. And it landed flat."
"Even though Harris' slogan was 'We are not going back,' the campaign was firmly in reverse, taking the DeLorean to 2008," Fleming wrote. "That was back when Hollywood A-listers meant something around here.
"Barack Obama was on top, and rolling out a Julia Roberts or a George Clooney for a campaign meant dazzling an important constituency — People magazine readers in Middle America," she continued. "Before the Democratic Party completely abandoned the working class. Talked down to them. Told them they were racist or bigoted for not putting their pronouns in their bio."
Instead, Fleming touted the impact that Trump's endorsements had, coming from podcasters and streamers who interviewed Trump and helped platform him on the internet directly to millions of subscribers and viewers.
Fleming argued that these celebrities were "a little less elitist" than those the Democrats pushed forward, marking another instance of the left losing step with its voting base.
The Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation tackled the issue in a study published in August titled, "Celebrities Strengthening Our Culture of Democracy," which analyzed the impact of celebrity engagement on civic participation.
"Today, many celebrities are involved in efforts to help boost civic interest, engagement, and participation while building goodwill with their fans," the study's lead author, Ashley Spillane, wrote in the introduction.
"This study focuses specifically on what celebrities are doing, and can do, to promote voter participation, including voter education and mobilization efforts. However imperfectly, the impact of these efforts can be measured by examining whether they lead people to take actions related to voting, such as registering to vote, requesting a ballot, and casting a ballot."
Spillane ultimately determined that celebrity endorsements might not drive voters which way to cast their ballot, but it did prompt greater engagement overall, a point she reiterated to Newsweek in an email.
"We can certainly debate the value and impact of celebrity endorsements of candidates, especially in a close election with so many factors at play," Spillane told Newsweek. "However, there is robust evidence that celebrities do have a real impact in promoting overall, nonpartisan civic engagement [encouraging voter registration, poll worker signups, etc.]
"Influential voices, brands and cultural leaders do have the ability to make voting more accessible and generate excitement and deeper engagement around elections, regardless of which candidates ultimately prevail."
However, she added: "Questions about the impact celebrity endorsements had on the 2024 election will linger until we have more voter data available. People want to know if celebrities can get a voter to change their mind about who to vote for and the answer is, we don't know—no one has studied that.
"We have to wait for the data to see whether that resulted in increased turnout, but the data we studied in 2018, 2020 and 2022 all indicated that celebrity promotion of civic engagement drives higher turnout," she said.
"More broadly, when looking at celebrity involvement in civic engagement, their impact hinges on their authenticity and relevance to the audience. When a celebrity understands their fans and community of followers, they know what sort of information and resources will best serve them and what issues matter most to them.
"With that in mind, prioritizing engaging celebrities with connections to specific states or communities is certainly a thoughtful approach and it's one we saw both presidential campaigns try to execute this year."
According to Spillane, the U.S. ranks 31st out of 50 developed nations in terms of eligible voter participation, warning that lagging voter engagement and rising distrust of political institutions "weaken our democracy."
Many noted an apparent drop in votes cast in the 2024 election compared to 2020, the highest turnout in the past century for an election by percentage of voting-eligible population with 65.9 percent.
Analysis by The Washington Post using data from the Associated Press found that expected national turnout to hit about 65 percent, meaning that any apparent gap will likely close over the coming days as states such as California, Arizona and Nevada continue to report outstanding votes.
