Taylor Swift, one of America’s most celebrated pop-culture icons, endorsed United States Vice President Kamala Harris late Tuesday after Ms. Harris’s debate against former US President Donald J. Trump.
“Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight,” Ms. Swift wrote on Instagram to her 283 million followers. “I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”
Ms. Swift signed her post as “Childless Cat Lady,” a reference to comments made by Mr. Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, about women without children. The photo that accompanied her post showed her holding a furry feline, Benjamin Button, her pet Ragdoll.
Ms. Swift’s endorsement was much anticipated among Democrats. The singer has expressed regret for not having done more to speak out about her opposition to Mr. Trump during his first run in 2016. Since then, she has embraced a more political posture while speaking out on issues such as abortion access.
Ms. Swift also referred to her “fears” about artificial intelligence, pointing to content generated by the technology that had falsely suggested that she supported Mr. Trump, which the former president promoted on social media. She underscored concerns that Americans would not know where she genuinely stood if she had not spoken out.
“It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” Ms. Swift wrote. “It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”
A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, Karoline Leavitt, dismissed the endorsement as “more evidence that the Democrat party has become the party of the wealthy elite.”
In making her endorsement, Ms. Swift added that she was “heartened and impressed” by Ms. Harris’s choice of Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, saying that Mr. Walz had been “standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”
Soon after, Mr. Walz appeared on MSNBC, where the host Rachel Maddow read Ms. Swift’s endorsement to him in its entirety. “I am incredibly grateful, first of all, to Taylor Swift,” Mr. Walz said, putting his hand over his heart. “I say that also as a cat owner — a fellow cat owner.”
