Taylor Swift performs onstage during “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour” at Olympiastadion on July 27, 2024 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by Thomas Niedermueller/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management )
Thomas Niedermueller | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris in a Tuesday night Instagram post drove at least 337,826 visitors to Vote.gov, a government website that directs users to state-specific voting information, a spokesperson for the U.S. General Services Administration told CNBC.
Swift released her endorsement minutes after the conclusion of the first debate between Harris and former President Donald Trump.
In her Instagram endorsement, the musical superstar pointed her followers to the Vote.gov website, and encouraged them to do their own research and get registered to vote early.
“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election,” Swift wrote. “I also find it’s much easier to vote early. I’ll link where to register and find early voting dates and info in my story.”
As of 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Swift’s custom-made URL link to Vote.gov was responsible for a flood of visitor traffic to the website.
Vote.gov has enjoyed a Swift bump before.
Last year, Swift posted a similar link to the Vote.gov website to motivate her followers to register to vote. The website experienced a 1,226% traffic boost in the hour after Swift’s 2023 post, NPR reported last year.
The website averaged 13,000 visitors every 30 minutes after that post, Vote.org CEO Andrea Hailey told NPR.
Swift’s presidential endorsement has already earned her the ire of Trump and his campaign.
The Republican presidential nominee said that Swift would “probably pay a price for it in the market” in an interview Wednesday morning on “Fox & Friends.”
His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, echoed the bitter sentiment.
We admire Taylor Swift’s music, but I don’t think most Americans whether they like her music, are fans of hers or not, are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans,” Vance said in a Wednesday Fox News interview.
Trump previously suggested that he would accept a Swift endorsement if he secured it.
In August, when AI-generated images of Swift supporting Trump circulated around social media, Trump posted on his Truth Social account, “I accept.”
In her Tuesday night post, Swift said her endorsement of Harris was partly in response to those fake AI images.
“Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site,” the megastar wrote. “I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter.”
