so Taylor Swift has endorsed vice president kamla Harris in her campaign she’s also encouraged people to click on a voter registration link online that’s had a lot of attention in recent days the question is what kind of impact will it really have on the presidential race Tom B joins us now he is a senior adviser at Target smart which analyzes voter registration data Tom thanks for being here what are you seeing from Taylor Swift and her endorsement especially in terms of driving civic participation yeah so I think this is a
question a lot of us had after we saw the endorsement I think a lot of people expected it was coming but the question of how much of an impact will she have Beyond just excitement you know the likes on Instagram will it translate into voter registration so we can see some of the backend data in terms of the data that is coming and hitting off the voter file that we build and what we saw was this really massive increase we’re calling it The Swift effect now because it’s really unlike anything I’ve seen we
were seeing a four or 500% increase in people coming and trying to register to vote immediately following the debate and in that period after Taylor Swift uh posted on Instagram and what’s really remarkable about that usually you’ll see these increases and they kind of Fade Away in this case we’ve seen it continue through the last two days into today how so well you know I I I’m told I have two teenage daughters that she was on the Video Music Awards on MTV last night apparently she put out another pitch for
people to register to vote and so we’re seeing this continued Spike of four or five times what you would regularly see so we’re talking about somewhere in neighborhood 9 to 10,000 people per hour just hitting our system that’s not indicative of everything but it’s a lot of it and what does this mean for the election well you know a big part of this the big question I think a lot of people ask is when you see new registrants sure they’re registering to vote will they vote well we actually
have sta St istics going back to 2020 we can see people who registered to vote this close to the election over 80% of those new registrants actually turned out in the election so it’s safe to say that not only are these voters who are registering uh are a big deal but it’s likely that they’re going to come out on Election Day or before election day in the early voting what are you seeing in Pennsylvania Pennsylvania is a fascinating one now we know that Pennsylvania is one of the blue wall States it’s it’s likely to be decisive
uh and so when we look at the registration Trends there we’ve seen big increases especially from younger voters Women Voters and voters of color when you look at younger women of color that sort of overlap of all three groups you’re seeing numbers that are almost unbelievable in some cases almost tripling the registration rate that we saw from those voters four years earlier in the 2020 cycle when you look at the data following Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris and the the push of that link to register to vote do we
have a profile of the kind of voter who’s emerging from this Taylor Swift constituency it’ll take a little while before we have the hard data on exactly who these people are exactly where they are but the data that we have been seeing so far in terms of the data hitting our system and the the earlier voter registration data counts we have again it’s overwhelmingly younger voters it’s more women than men it’s more voters of color uh these are voters that overwhelmingly tend to lean Democratic so it seems to
be at this point very good news for the Harris campaign but again in the coming weeks we’ll be able to look at it with more granular detail have you seen any Republican endorsement have any kind of effect on voter registration I haven’t you know I mean part of that might just be the lack of high-profile celebrity endorsements and frankly there’s no one out there that I can imagine who comes close to Taylor Swift just in terms of that following and her ability to to motivate people and mobilize people but
in terms of the data we have not seen a precedent that matches up to what we’re seeing in the data now is there any state out there where you’re seeing an unusual Spike forget Taylor Swift’s specific endorsement just in terms of voter participation in registration yeah this is the remarkable thing and and the sort of goes back to two years ago on the dobs decision where after that decision uh getting rid of roie Wade effectively we saw big increases but it wasn’t really around the country it was
in some States but not in others what’s remarkable about what we’ve been seeing since vice president Harris became the nominee is that you’re seeing big increases not just in these so-called purple States the swing States and Battlegrounds that will decide this presidential election but you’re seeing it in red States and blue States in fact one of the biggest increases we’ve seen so far in registration among these younger voters and voters of color is in Louisiana a state that uh is incredibly
unlikely to be competitive in the presidential Tom B thank you for coming by America decides we appreciate it
