Republicans Turn on Taylor Swift After Her Harris Endorsement

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Taylor Swift remains popular with the bulk of American voters, but the superstar is facing an increase in negative views this year driven largely by Republicans as she throws her fame behind Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Roughly half of all U.S. voters (49%) hold favorable opinions of Swift according to Morning Consult’s latest survey, in line with data collected in February. But compared with earlier this year, the share of voters with unfavorable views of her has increased from 25% to 35% as fewer voters said they hadn’t formed opinions about her.

Since February, Swift’s net favorability rating (the share with favorable views minus the share with unfavorable ones) among GOP voters declined 35 percentage points, with a majority now expressing unfavorable views (57%). This erases a soft popularity edge among the country’s right-leaning voters following former President Donald Trump’s online post saying, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT.”

Over the past seven months, Swift saw a slight uptick in popularity among Democrats (from 64% to 71%) alongside a modest an increase in unfavorable opinions among independent voters (from 26% to 34%) — though the bulk of those not affiliated with either major party (45%) still see her in a positive light.

Compared with the larger electorate, Swift is slightly more popular with voters who indicate they plan to cast ballots this fall, and is far less disliked than either major party presidential contender — especially Trump.

The bottom line

Swift’s most avid fans — a group of Americans that’s over indexed with millennials and Democrats — were overwhelmingly in favor of her endorsing a Democratic presidential candidate back in February when President Joe Biden was still in the race. Her endorsement of Harris doesn’t appear to have diminished her standing among her core fan base, though she does appear to have damaged her reputation with Republican voters, who make up less than a fourth of her avid fan base.

For Harris, Swift’s nod came just after her widely-lauded debate performance against Trump, making it impossible to parse the endorsement’s impact on Harris’ record-level support, though the vice president has secured her strongest backing among some of the same groups (namely Democrats and millennials) that make up Swift’s core fan group. 

Swift’s larger impact on the contest may be what our data suggested back in February: Encouraging people who follow her to participate in the electoral process, especially her more casual fans. After her endorsement was posted, the website Vote.org reported thousands of voter registrations to participate in the November election.