Taylor Swift endorses Kamala Harris: ‘She is a steady-handed, gifted leader’

Taylor Swift got off the sidelines of the 2024 election, writing in a Sept. 10 Instagram post that she is voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in November “because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”

“I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” Swift wrote after the first debate between Harris and former President Donald Trump concluded.

Swift decided to go public with her endorsement because of a fake AI image Trump had posted that claimed Swift had endorsed his presidential bid. 

“The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth,” Swift said, before talking about her reasons for endorsing Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Swift posted her endorsement along with a photo of herself holding one of her cats, Benjamin Button, a nod to comments by Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance, who has disparaged Harris and other Democratic leaders as “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

Swift signed her post, “With love and hope, Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady.”

Swift has become increasingly vocal about her politics in recent years.

In 2020, she endorsed Joe Biden and Harris for president and vice president, telling V Magazine that Biden and Harris support abortion rights and equality for minorities and the LGBTQ community, issues that were important to her.

“Under their leadership, I believe America has a chance to start the healing process it so desperately needs,” Swift told V in an article published in October of that year.

In 2018, Swift endorsed Democrat Phil Bredesen, who was running against Republican Marsha Blackburn in an open seat race in Tennessee. That was the first time Swift went public with her political views.

“In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now,” Swift wrote in an Instagram post, saying that she supports candidates who believe in equal rights for minority groups and the LGBTQ community.

Of Blackburn, Swift wrote: “Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values.”

Harris’ campaign accepted Swift’s endorsement and played Swift’s song “The Man” at a post-debate event in Philadelphia at which Harris spoke. In the song, Swift sings: “I’m so sick of running as fast as I can/ Wondering if I’d get there quicker/ If I was a man/ And I’m so sick of them coming at me again/ ‘Cause if I was a man/ Then I’d be the man.”

Trump disparaged Swift after her endorsement, saying in a televised phone call to “Fox & Friends” that he is “not a Taylor Swift fan” and that after the endorsement, “she’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace.”