Taylor Swift’s Kamala Harris endorsement drove 400,000 people to vote.gov in 24 hours

A “childless cat lady” has demonstrated the power that pop culture figures possess during the 2024 election cycle. I’m talking about Taylor Swift, who drove more than 400,000 visitors to the U.S. government’s official voter registration hub when she endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on September 10.

Swift took to Instagram upon the conclusion of the first (and perhaps only) debate between Harris and her Republican opponent Donald Trump. Her post outlined the rationale behind her Harris endorsement while encouraging her fans to make their voices heard. “Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make,” Swift wrote. “I also want to say, especially to first time voters: Remember that in order to vote, you have to be registered!”

The Swifties heard that message and moved quickly to abide by it. In the 24 hours after Swift posted her message, the star of the blockbuster ‘Eras Tour’ drove 405,999 visitors to vote.gov. A spokesperson for the General Services Administration — the federal agency that operates vote.gov — told CBS News that the URL averaged about 30,000 visits per day during the week leading up to the debate.

This is not the first time that a piece of social media content has directed U.S. citizens to a federal website. Way back in 2014, the media company Funny or Die became the top referrer to Healthcare.gov after President Obama appeared in an episode

of Zack Galifianakis‘ outrageous interview series Between Two Ferns. A decade later, T-Swift is leading another surge of sign-ups on a government hub, and she didn’t need a coordinated media campaign to pull it off.

The “Swiftie bump” helps explain why presidential candidates on both sides of the political aisle are eager to get face time with influencers. Despite all of the verbal sparring that took place during the Harris-Trump debate, it was Swift who got the last word (and many of the subsequent headlines).

Speaking of the debate, it gave The Gregory Brothers the chance to dust off their schmoyoho YouTube channel and add another chapter to an internet classic. With Joseph Gordon-Levitt standing in for debate moderator David Muir, schmoyoho delivered some 2012 vibes more than a decade later.

The schmoyoho video also featured a call for registrations on vote.gov. I don’t know if the Gregory Brothers’ push was impactful as Swift’s, but if they launched an Eras Tour that harkened back to their glory days on YouTube, I’d buy a ticket.