What comes first: the endorsement or the popularity?

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Celebrity endorsements don’t matter much. At least, not much to the outcome of elections. Take Taylor Swift’s recent endorsement of Kamala Harris, for example. It’s considered by many as the most influential celebrity endorsement of the cycle.

But it doesn’t seem to have had much of an effect. Two weeks since Swift’s Instagram post, Harris holds steady in the polls. Per FiveThirtyEight, Harris had a 2.4 point lead over Trump before Swift’s post on September 10th, and today she holds a 2.6 point lead. There isn’t any indication that the 0.2-point difference can be attributed to Swift. Harris’s popularity has been steadily growing for weeks.

An endorsement of a candidate by a celebrity might have some effect on the performance of the candidate, but their main function is to make voting “cool.” It shows their fans and followers that it is hip to get out and vote, to be involved civically and politically.

According to USA Today, Swift’s post led to 405,000 people visiting vote.gov. That’s more than 10 times the 30,000-visitor daily average. While it’s unclear how many of those visitors registered or updated their registrations, certainly a good number of them did - many more than would have if not for Swift’s endorsement. And many of those that did register from the post will likely vote with Swift in November.

But Taylor Swift is not the only celebrity, and she’s not the only celebrity endorsing political candidates, either. In today’s polarized climate it can be easy to assume that every celebrity agrees with you. Within our echo chambers, likely every celebrity we see has endorsed our candidate .

Within Swift’s same celebrity circle, though, Brittany Mahomes is a (quiet) Trump endorser[WM3] , liking the former president’s social media posts and even receiving a shout-out on Trump’s Truth Social. While Mahomes’s endorsement might not itself cancel out Swift's, Elon Musk’s, Kanye West’s, the Quaid Brothers’, and Kodak Black’s altogether might. Or maybe they don’t. Who knows? Who cares? Get out and vote! It would be cool even if all these people weren’t doing it.

And, come on , Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris is more a sign of Harris’s success than it is a part of it. It’s not that Harris’s popularity is soaring in the wake of Swift’s endorsement. Looking at the polls over time, it’s more like Harris[WM5]  finally got popular enough for Swift to safely endorse. Or maybe that enough public pressure had built due to Swift’s Trumpian boyfriend and family that she felt a need to protect her brand from conservative takeover.