Taylor Swift’s announcement that she will be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris comes six years after the singer first made her political endorsement.
“Like all of you, I watched tonight’s debate,” Swift wrote on Instagram to her 283 million followers on Tuesday. “I will be voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz for President in 2024. I am voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for rights and causes that I believe we need warriors to defend.”
Until 2018, Swift had kept quiet about politics and had faced criticism over the years about if and when she would make her opinions public.
Below is a timeline of Swift’s involvement in US politics.
October 2018: Supported the Democrats in the Tennessee Senate election
Swift first broke her political silence in 2018, when she criticized Tennessee Republican Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn and endorsed Senate candidate Phil Bredesen and House candidate Jim Cooper.
“In the past I have been reluctant to publicly express my political opinions, but several events in my life and the world over the past two years have caused me to feel very differently about it now,” Swift, who has said she will vote in Tennessee’s midterm elections, wrote in an Instagram post.
Later that month, Swift posted a photo with her mother supporting Bredesen on October 30, 2018. “We want leadership, not fear-based extremism,” she wrote.
In one scene from “Taylor Swift: Miss Americana,” a documentary about the singer that premiered in January 2020, Swift and her team discuss her decision to support Bredesen over Blackburn. “You won’t see any more commercials where she hides these policies behind the words ‘Tennessee Christian values,'” she said. “I live in Tennessee. I’m a Christian. That’s not what we believe.”
As her father and staff worried about safety and the repercussions of taking a political stance, Swift said, “I need to be on the right side of history. … Dad, I need you to forgive me for doing this, because I’m doing this.”
Despite Swift’s support for Bredesen, Blackburn won the election.
October 2018: Fans encouraged to vote early
And in October, Swift urged her fans to take advantage of early voting, in a caption for a photo of herself with her toes painted red, white and blue.
“Here’s something I wish I’d known when I turned 18 and voted for the first time: ✨Early Voting✨,” Swift wrote. “It will make it so much quicker and easier to get to the polls before November 6th. Early voting in Tennessee starts today and runs through November 1st 🇺🇸.”
June 2019: Supporting the Equality Act
On June 1, 2019, Swift shared an open letter on X (then known as Twitter) calling on Tennessee Republican Senator Lamar Alexander to protect LGBTQ rights by supporting the Equality Act, which aims to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
She criticized then-President Donald Trump’s opposition to the bill. “I personally reject the President’s position that my Administration ‘supports equal treatment for all,’ but I believe that the Equality Act, ‘in its current form, is full of poisonous pills that threaten to undermine parental and conscience rights,'” Swift wrote. “You cannot take a stand in support of your community and then accuse it of violating ‘conscience’ or ‘parental rights’ the next minute. That statement suggests there is something wrong with being anything other than heterosexual and cisgender, which is a very harmful message to send to a country full of healthy, loving families with same-sex, non-binary, and transgender parents, sons, and daughters.”
In the same post, Swift called on her fans to write similar letters to their senators or sign a Change.org petition she started in support of the bill. “Let’s show our pride by demanding that, at a national level, our laws truly treat all citizens equally,” she wrote.
March 2019: Sharing that I’m finding my political voice
In an essay for Elle magazine called “30 Things I Learned Before I Turned 30,” Swift said she was “finding my opinion on politics.”
“I spent a lot of time learning about our political system and the government agencies that sign bills that affect our daily lives,” she wrote. “I saw many issues that put our most vulnerable citizens at risk and felt I had to speak up to make a change.”
She declared that she plans to become more politically active. “Fueling racism and stoking fear with thinly veiled messaging is not what I want from our leaders, and I’ve realized that it’s actually my responsibility to use my influence to counter that nasty rhetoric,” she said. “I plan to be more supportive.”
August 2019: Calls President Trump a “dictatorship”
In an interview with The Guardian, Swift said she regretted her silence during the 2016 election, and that if she had spoken out, she would have supported former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
She called President Trump a “dictatorship” and vowed to do things differently in the 2020 election. “I want to do everything I can to help in 2020, and I want to think about how I can help specifically, what is the most effective way to help,” she said.
Swift said that growing up as a country music star, she was often warned not to turn out like the Chicks, who received heavy industry backlash for speaking out against the Iraq War. “I watched country music become like the Chicks, the greatest group of its time, and yet they were getting death threats just for speaking out about politics. They were such an example that almost every country artist that came after, every label, said, ‘Don’t bother with us no matter what.'”
October 2020: Endorsed Joe Biden
Swift first endorsed a presidential candidate on October 7, 2020, revealing her plans to vote for President Joe Biden and Ms Harris in an interview with V Magazine.
“I will be proudly voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in this year’s presidential election,” she said, “and I believe that under their leadership, America has a chance to begin the healing process that it so desperately needs.”
June 2022: I’m “horrified” by the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
On the day that Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights decision, was overturned, the star retweeted an open letter from former first lady Michelle Obama, adding that she was “deeply horrified that we are in this situation.”
“For decades, women have fought for the right to control their own bodies, and today’s ruling takes that away,” Swift wrote.
September 2023: Create a voter registration surge
On Election Day, Swift posted an Instagram Story with a link to Vote.org, encouraging her fans to register to vote, and the organization said that more than 35,000 voters registered in response to her post.
August 2024: Trump makes fake endorsement
Trump posted an AI-generated image of Swift dressed as Uncle Sam saying, “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.” The Truth Social post also showed scores of Swift fans voicing their support for the Republican presidential candidate.
Swift later said that the fake image circulated by Trump was what prompted her to publicly endorse Harris. “It really brought out my fears about AI and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” she wrote in an Instagram post endorsing Harris. “I’ve come to the conclusion that, as a voter, I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election. The easiest way to fight misinformation is to present the truth.”
September 2024: Endorses Harris
On the night of the first presidential debate between Trump and Harris, Swift posted on Instagram that she would be voting for Harris in the November debate. “I believe she is a poised and talented leader and I believe our country can accomplish so much more if it is led with calm rather than chaos,” Swift wrote. “I am so encouraged and impressed by the selection of Tim Waltz as your running mate, who has been an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and women’s body rights for decades.”
She urged her fans to make their own decisions in the race: “I did my research and I made my choice. You are responsible for your research and your choice.”
She concluded by saying, “A childless, cat-loving woman,” referring to Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance’s controversial comments about his Democratic opponent.
