Above: Oprah Winfrey embraces Kamala Harris on the campaign trail. Photo courtesy of The New York Times.
The 2024 election became a star-studded event; from Oprah Winfrey to Kid Rock, student’s favorite a-listers made their choices clear, but were their endorsements enough to sway student voters? The list of celebrities getting publicly involved in this election was larger than elections past, encouraging their fans to vote. According to the New York Times, Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris drove hundreds of thousands of new voters to the voter registration site. Likewise, Joe Rogan endorsed Trump the day before the election to his nearly 20 million Instagram followers, urging listeners to vote for the former president. While the true impact of celebrity endorsement is hard to measure, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania states “One of the key takeaways is that celebrity endorsement does work.”
One SAU student, who asked to remain anonymous, said “My favorite celebrity who endorsed a political candidate is Brittany Broski.” Brittany Broski is an influencer and podcast host who rose to fame a few years ago after a viral Tik Tok video. Broski endorsed Kamala Harris early on in her campaign. “Her biggest reason is women’s autonomous rights which I wholeheartedly agreed with and resonated with as a young woman afraid of being forced to have a child.” Reproductive rights were at the center of most of Harris’ endorsements in this election.
The student added, “I wouldn’t say Brittany’s endorsement swayed me to vote for Kamala Harris, it was the combination of several factors. However, Brittany’s endorsement did help justify my decision.”
“I like Joe Rogan’s podcast, and I figured he was going to endorse Donald Trump, but I knew I wasn’t going to vote for him, regardless,” says another student who also asked to remain anonymous due to the intensity of the current political climate. “I’m not really a Trump person, so his endorsement [of Trump] didn’t really do anything for me, but I still like to listen sometimes.”
The impact of celebrity endorsements fell short of typical expectation this election, because despite having significantly more celebrity endorsements than her opponent, Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump. Elon Musk, Trump’s biggest and wealthiest supporter, spent the last few days prior to the election stressing the importance of voting for the Republican candidate, saying “Get out and vote like your lives depend on it, because they do,” with very similar pleas coming from Harris’ endorsements. Despite the majority of endorsements not swinging the election for Harris, PBS states that “celebrity endorsements probably made a difference by a few million votes.”
Brenden Argenta is a staff writer for The Buzz.
