Taylor Swift, the iconic Pennsylvania-born singer-songwriter, skyrocketed to incomprehensible levels of fame in 2023. With her album re-recordings, her record-breaking “Eras Tour,” and her newfound interest in American Football, Swift’s influence extends beyond just her fans. She has even been described as the music industry itself. Recently, she has become one of the biggest selling points of Kansas City Chiefs tickets. While influencing everything from fashion to football, one of Swift’s most important ventures was encouraging thousands upon thousands of young fans to register to vote.

Before 2018, Swift remained out of the political scene, keeping up a “good girl” image, meaning she would not speak about political issues to avoid being seen as “too loud” or “too sensitive”, as she admitted in her 2019 documentary, Miss Americana. However, Swift entered the world of politics in November  2018 when she announced that she would be endorsing two democratic politicians from Tennessee, her home state—Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives. This shocked many fans who had assumed she was conservative, and even the white supremacist website, The Daily Stormer, who had dubbed her their “aryan goddess”. Since then, Swift has been vocal against Donald Trump—as seen in Miss Americana— and a strong advocate for women’s rights, abortion rights, and LGBTQ rights (highlighted in her song and music video “You Need To Calm Down” from her album Lover).

After her political “outing” in 2018, Swift took it upon herself to encourage all her young fans to speak their minds and not be afraid to advocate for themselves and what they believe in. Emphasis on young, because the average age range of Taylor Swift fans is 18-24 years old — just old enough to be able to vote and make change. In fact, she took this a step further by releasing a song called “Only The Young” in 2019, featuring the lyrics “They aren’t gonna help us, too busy helping themselves. They aren’t gonna change this, we gotta do it ourselves. They think that it’s over, but it’s just begun. Only one thing can save us- only the young!” 

On September 19th, 2023, which is National Voter Registration Day, Swift posted an Instagram story to her 272 million followers, urging young fans to register to vote. She included a link to an online voting website, and wrote, “I’ve heard you raise your voices, and I know how powerful they are. Make sure you’re ready to use them in our elections this year!” (Swift was referring to her record breaking “Eras Tour,” which was attended by millions of passionate fans). She used the influence that she has on her fans to register over 35,000 new voters: Mostly women, mostly young people. In fact, there was a 115% increase in 18 year olds registering to vote this year using the website Vote.org which was promoted by Swift. We can’t confirm the causality of this, but it seems to be correlated. 

In the past, Swift has been credited for her influence over young musicians, young people’s fashion choices, book recommendations, and delicious recipes, but who knew it would branch out into politics? There is a lot in store for the 2024 political scene, and with Taylor Swift’s burgeoning influence, we’ll see how the electorate responds to her prompts. Voters gonna vote!