Swifties for Kamala, a grassroots coalition of Taylor Swift fans supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, kicked off on Tuesday night. It raised more than $125,000 in just a couple hours.
The kickoff call, which organizers said more than 27,000 people signed up for, featured self-identified Swiftie politicians such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), as well as singer Carole King—who capped off her speech encouraging attendees to participate in door-knocking with a few lines from “Shake It Off.”
During the two-hour call, 4,384 donors gave $128,000. As of Wednesday morning, an additional $10,000 had been raised.
Emerald Medrano, one of the co-founders of the group, told attendees that the movement “really started for me in a moment of anxiety, a moment when I felt like I needed to become like the cheer captain and not just on the bleachers.”
“It was a time when all my fears about our country and our democracy just built up, and I knew I had to speak now. So I did,” Medrano continued. “I sent out a tweet urging our community to organize this election and create a blue wave filled with hand hearts and friendship bracelets. And to my surprise, I got thousands and thousands of overwhelming support.”
In addition to King’s endorsement of canvassing, other actions Swifties were encouraged to take included: checking their voter registration and encouraging friends and family to do so as well, helping Americans they know overseas make a voting plan, connecting with neighbors to discuss politics, and repping just-launched “in my voting era” merch.
As the group pushed their attendees to get involved, references to Swift lyrics were in no short supply.
“We’ve got 70 days until the election, and I’m just going to be blunt, it is going to be a tough fight ahead,” Warren said. “We have a lot to do, and dang, there are only 24 hours in a day, or 144 ‘All Too Well’ 10-minute versions. But here’s the thing, just like you’ve done every time before, we will push this boulder up the hill and we will win in November.”
Gillibrand listed a number of reference-based jokes her staff wrote, including “we can’t stop, won’t stop voting, so shake it off,” and “Kamala is saying, ‘look what you made me do.’”
But perhaps the most reference-filled speech came from Markey, who mocked former President Donald Trump for staring at the sun during the eclipse in 2017.
“Donald Trump will stare directly in the sun, but never in the mirror,” Markey said. “So we have our work ahead of us to make sure we defeat this antihero wannabe, or as I like to call him, Mr. Casually Cruel, Mr. Everything Revolves Around You. In the words of Taylor Swift, I never trust a narcissist, and this narcissist-in-chief clearly doesn’t know enough about karma, or what I like to call the infinite organizing power of the Swifties on this Zoom call. He’s too busy soliciting billion-dollar bribes from his big oil buddies. But karma is a Swiftie voter.”
Though the movement began before Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her running mate, her choice has only further galvanized Swifties’ enthusiasm—since Walz himself is a vocal member of the fandom.
The official launch of Swifties for Kamala follows months of Swift’s name being tied to the 2024 election amid endorsement speculation.
Earlier this year, right-wingers latched onto a conspiracy that Swift was secretly a “Pentagon asset” and that her influence was being used to swing the election.
For her part, Swift has been vocal about encouraging fans to register to vote and previously voiced support for Democratic candidates and policies, though she has not weighed in on the 2024 election explicitly.
Just last week, Trump accepted a mock endorsement from Swift that included images of “Swifties for Trump”—the majority of which were AI-generated.
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