On Sunday, October 7, Taylor Swift posted a picture on Instagram with a caption asking her followers to go out and vote in her home state of Tennessee. She stated that while she tries to stay out of politics, she can no longer stay silent and instead chose to endorse Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper in favor of Marsha Blackburn. Her endorsement is on the basis of Blackburn’s history of voting in favor of laws that hurt women and minorities. “These are not MY Tennessee values,” she said on her Instagram post. Swift asked all of her fans, regardless of political ideology, to register to vote.
In less than 24 hours following her post, there was a spike in voter registration of 65 thousand people, which is less than the number of those had registered for the whole month of August. The state of Tennessee had an especially high increase in registration.
In the current age of pop icons and celebrities influencing politics, it should not come as a surprise that pop stars are the ones that are, in part, responsible for young people’s voter registration and voter turnout. Whether or not this may be seen as a good thing, this trend is not something that will be going away any time soon.