Update: Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris on September 11, following the first presidential debate between Harris and Trump.
“As goes GM, so goes the nation”—that’s what people used to say about General Motors’ outsized influence on politics back in the ’50s (and ’60s and ’70s and ’80s and ’90s). But the golden age of automobile manufacturers is over, and the golden age of pop stars has arrived. In 2024, we might say, “As go the Swifties, so goes the election.”
At least, that’s what Swifties for Kamala (S4K) hope is true. Formed mere hours after President Biden announced he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential election and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, Swifties for Kamala is a coalition of Taylor fans that’s racked up a quarter of a million followers across multiple social media platforms in less than a month.
Although she endorsed the Biden/Harris ticket back in 2020, Taylor Swift hasn’t yet said a single word about the 2024 election—and with a net worth of over $1 billion, the highest-grossing concert tour in history, a record-breaking four Album of the Year Grammys, and an army of fans who are frankly terrifying to get on the wrong side of (just ask Jake Gyllenhaal), Ms. Tortured Poets is one of the most powerful people in the country right now. An economist coined a word—“Swiftynomics”—to describe her influence on the worldwide economy, and a journalist invented a term—“the Taylor Swift effect”—when her first-ever political endorsements caused over 160,000 people to register to vote in 48 hours back in 2018.
But don’t get it twisted (in bedsheets): Swifties for Kamala isn’t trying to encourage Taylor Swift to endorse VP Harris. Although they’d be happy to see her throw her support behind their candidate, Taylor’s political participation (or lack thereof) is almost beside the point. Instead, S4K’s aim is to tap into the already existing, already powerful fan community to work together for a common goal: electing Kamala Harris as the next president of the United States. As senior communications director and cofounder Irene Kim, 29, tells Cosmo, “We’re not trying to make her do anything—we do not speak for Taylor. Our movement is about the power of our community and how we can mobilize together.” With S4K, the Swiftie fandom is operating independently from its star.
First, a little background: The mastermind behind Swifties for Kamala is Emerald Medrano, 22 (yes, like the Taylor song), who posted on X, “I feel like us U.S. Swifties should mass organize and help campaign for Kamala Harris and spread how horrendous project 2025 would be to help get peopl’s butts down to the polls in November. Like if we don’t want democracy to end we really need to move and push blue votes” at 3:03 p.m. ET on July 21, exactly 50 minutes after President Biden announced that he had decided to drop out of the race.
Medrano had been active in the Swiftie community on social media for years, and fellow Swiftie Irene Kim—a freelance producer and content creator with past union organizing experience—reached out to help make his tweet a reality. They formed a Discord full of like-minded Swifties, complete with channels to brainstorm ideas for social media posts and plan events like the upcoming official kickoff call on Zoom (it’s on Tuesday, August 27, and you can sign up to join here).
Each S4K social media channel—TikTok (118.9K followers), X (65.4K followers), Instagram (42.9K followers), Threads (24.6K followers), Substack (5K subscribers), and the just-launched Facebook—has its own lead as well as a team of Swifties who share ideas and feedback. There are memes (“If you asked us on a deeper level…”), fan cams set to songs like “Fearless” and the renamed “You Need to Kamala Down,” and, of course, endless lyric references (“Wisconsin, don’t wake up on Wednesday thinking that you should’ve said no”).
But it’s not just fandom stuff. There’s also a policy-focused mission statement outlining S4K’s positions on reproductive freedom, LGBTQ+ rights, and a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas—posted on July 22, before Harris herself released a comprehensive policy platform or took a stance on Israel. S4K also shines a spotlight on down ballot races, sending support to candidates like Jacky Rosen in Nevada and Gabe Vasquez in New Mexico, as well as highlighting local ballot initiatives like Florida’s Amendment 4, which would overturn the state’s abortion ban. Outside of social media, S4K promotes opportunities to phone bank, text bank, and volunteer for down ballot campaigns.
The group is mainly made up of Gen Z and millennial Swifties, but there are older members as well. (And yes, Swifties for Kamala has done a demographic survey.) Like Miss Americana herself, these mirrorballs (IYKYK) don’t do anything by half.
We talked to four leaders in Swifties for Kamala: chairman and cofounder Emerald Morano, 22, of Texas; cofounder and senior communications director Irene Kim, 29, of New York; Threads lead Morgan Strehlow, 34, of Pennsylvania; and Instagram lead Rohan Reagan, 21, of California.
How did Swifties for Kamala get started?
Emerald Medrano: It was very spontaneous and surreal. I sent out a tweet saying, like, Please, we have a community that can make change. And from there, a bunch of people, like Irene, expressed interest. And we started building this thing that’s become a lot bigger than I thought it would. Swifties have surprised me in a really good way. I always knew we had the potential, but to see us actually making a positive change is really, really cool. Hopefully we can have an amazing Swiftie blue wave.
Irene Kim: I’ve been mutuals with Emerald for a long time, and I was really excited when I saw the tweet. I was like, Yeah, we should do something. I feel like over the last couple of years, anytime something happens, people are like, “Swifties need to do something.” Like, “Swifties need to save us from Ticketmaster.” I feel positive toward Biden for a lot of reasons, but when Kamala became the candidate, I was like, Wait, I’m excited. What can we do to support her? I was part of our union organizing committee when I was on the video team at Insider, so that has definitely helped inform a lot of how I’ve coordinated this, as well as understanding what infrastructure is needed. I feel like it’s similar in that we’re doing this because we care about each other and we’re trying to improve things for everyone.
Why is Kamala Harris such an exciting candidate for you, compared to President Biden?
EM: I see the way she holds herself in the world and what she’s willing to fight for. Like how she said, “Excuse me, I’m talking” in the [2020 vice presidential] debate—I just love that energy. I’m a trans man, but I have grown up with a woman’s experience. A lot of times, you get cut off and belittled, and I think that seeing her have the power to stand up for herself is so cool. Seeing her break expectations and push the boundaries while fighting for LGBT rights, Black people’s rights, and the rights of different marginalized groups makes me feel so happy. For Gen Z, this election is going to impact the direction our country goes in, and I would love to see it go in a way that is kind to all human beings.
IK: I would love to see our first woman president, you know? And not only that, a woman of color. It is crazy to think that we haven’t had one yet. As an Asian American woman with immigrant parents, that’s something that’s really exciting for me to see. During the Trump administration, there was so much racism and hatred. I want a president who actively fights against that. Kamala makes me really excited because I feel like she stands for a lot of the same things I do and will actually protect the rights and freedoms of not only someone like me, but the people I care about, and a lot of marginalized communities that have been under attack.
Morgan Strehlow: I was in the camp that wanted Biden to stay in the race because I thought that was our best chance. I didn’t know how quickly the Democrats would rally around Kamala. We started to see doom scrolling turning into hope scrolling.
Rohan Reagan: There are things that Kamala Harris has been doing that have made me more excited for her as a potential president, from the fact that she is willing to hear from possible voters, to her public pressuring of Israel to get a ceasefire deal done. I think it’s great that she is taking the time to address issues she knows a lot of people are wanting to hear about, which I have not seen Joe Biden do. For a lot of the other policies, like reproductive freedom and LGBTQ+ laws, she and Biden are aligned, but it is nice to see a fresh candidate.
Have you always been politically involved, or is this more of a recent development?
EM: I feel like I’ve always been politically involved. As a Latinx person, a trans person, and a queer person, I’ve always had to care. And living in Texas, the stakes are a lot higher for me, because if things go wrong in this election, I might have to move. It’s a lot of pressure and anxiety. But I’m using all my fears and putting them into actually taking action and hopefully impacting the election in a positive way.
IK: My first election was Trump and Hillary—I was so ready, I had my “Nasty Woman” sign and everything. I’ve always been interested in politics, but I didn’t always know how to get involved. Even now, I’m learning so much.
MS: I grew up in East Texas, and before social media was like what it is now, I had never really been exposed to political ideas that were not conservative. Democrats were always presented to me as the villains or the bad guys, antithetical to my Christian faith and values. I was a freshman in college in the fall of 2008 and my best friend from high school had just had a baby. I remember my mom saying something like, “Of course, she would vote for Obama. His policies would help her.” In hindsight, I feel like that was the very first domino to fall to help me question the conservative ideology. I asked myself, “Why wouldn’t my mom want to vote for what’s best for my best friend?” It’s this inner conviction, rooted in my Christian faith, that made me question the desire to vote for our own interests versus the interests of the more vulnerable among us.
RR: This is my first election. I’m a queer man, so I’ve always needed to follow politics somewhat closely, because my life is so directly connected to politics. I was always planning on voting, but getting involved with Swifties for Kamala has been an experience where I am learning a lot more than I probably would have otherwise.
What is it about the Swiftie community that makes it the way you’ve chosen to get involved? Why organize around Swifties for Kamala and not another aspect of your identity?
EM: I think it is our deep-rooted history and tradition that have made this possible. It’s funny to talk about a fandom in that way, but it’s true—we do have our own little culture. One of our goals is that we really want to make this almost a Swiftie safe space where people feel comfortable to be active in politics, especially younger voters and people who have never really participated in politics. We combine voter registration information with, like, friendship bracelets initiatives. We’re bringing things from our fandom culture into a political space, which I think is a really cool way to help people open up and participate.
IK: If I think about it, I could have easily organized with another group, but being a Swiftie has become a bigger part of my identity the last couple years. It is one of my biggest communities, especially since the Eras Tour started. It happened naturally, because these are my friends. Swifties are also very quick to mobilize—just look at us when there’s a presale.
MS: We have a shared interest in Taylor Swift’s music, and that has brought us joy and friendship and community. We’ve been finding the people who are in the center of the Venn diagram of Taylor Swift fans and progressive voters. I was telling my husband this morning that being involved in Swifties for Kamala has been so good for my mental health. In the last few presidential election seasons, I’ve had to take time away from social media in order to stay healthy and present in my day-to-day life so that I wouldn’t be overcome by the despair, desperation, outrage, and anger that comes up when we feel a sense of our safety and security slipping away.
Of course, Taylor hasn’t endorsed Kamala at this point. Do you hope that Swifties for Kamala encourages her to do so?
EM: For us, Taylor’s endorsement is a little bit besides the point, because we’re really focusing on how we are passionate and powerful as a community. Taylor has been our role model and showed us how to stand up for ourselves, like she always stands up for herself in the music industry. She has a huge influence, but we are acting on our own.
IK: We’re here because of our values and what we can do as a community. Our political director’s apartment burned down [in early 2024]. One of the big Swiftie accounts on Twitter, Swiftie Wins, retweeted her, and then all these Swifties donated $13 to her. And now Swiftie Wins is also running Swifties for Kamala Wins. Our community steps up for each other and we can mobilize together.
MS: I personally feel pretty indifferent about it. I’ve given her a lot of grace on not speaking out about a lot of things while she’s on tour, because she has to consider not just her own safety but the safety of her fans. I’d like to think that we’re not doing this for her—we’re doing this for our country.
RR: We are not waiting on Taylor to show her support for Kamala Harris. We are doing this outside of her, using the platform of Swifties as a way to get people involved in the election. Taylor did throw her support toward Joe Biden during the 2020 election, so it is possible that she’ll show her support again. But Swifties for Kamala aren’t waiting for her to do that.
I’ve seen some Swifties speculate that Taylor is sending hidden messages of support for Kamala with some of the outfit changes, set design changes, and surprise songs in the Eras Tour. What do you think about those?
EM: I think that Swifties will always see what they want to see. We have the “five holes in the fence” incident and other clown moments. I think if she were to endorse her, it would be a full-on post like she did in 2020.
RR: Swifties love to dig into the way that Taylor Swift does things for Easter eggs, whether or not they are real Easter eggs.
