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Celebrity endorsements: Do they affect voter opinions?

October 2, 2024

From Taylor Swift to Kid Rock, celebrities have been extremely vocal about their endorsements of this year’s presidential candidates. Their opinions live online, which allows fans to share their beliefs with their favorite celebrities. Could this be influencing voters on their way to the polls?

Young voters are active participants in politics separate from traditional news sources. Their opinions are shared via social media like TikTok and Instagram. In turn, they are then often shown highly opinionated content. A criminal justice junior, Trevor Wittke, thinks this is the first problem.

“People kind of rely on the media to get their opinions for them,” Wittke said. “It’s a lot of false information.”

Political science and pre-law freshman Q Lorenz agrees, and thinks this, in combination with a lack of experience, makes college students more susceptible to their own opinion being swayed by a celebrity. When one does not have a lot of experience researching a candidate, social media can make it far too easy.

“One of the most important things for our democracy is that you need to be educated,” Lorenz said. “You need to learn why you’re voting for somebody, what issues that matter to you the most and which candidate is actually doing something about them.”

Concerns of people not educating themselves after seeing celebrity endorsements were also acknowledged by a humanities, pre-law and art history junior, Sofia Weissflach. Weissflach recognized that it could go both ways; an endorsement may prompt someone to research a candidate, or it could encourage a blind following.

“Celebrities are used in advertisements,” Weissflach said. “People could go buy something that (celebrities) are being paid to advertise without knowing if it’s actually good or not. So, I think that could happen in elections too.”

A major fan base for a musician can draw a lot of attention to their endorsement and a lot of support to the candidate they support, even though, typically, little is done to provide more information on the candidate or their policies. This is another source of concern.

“If you write songs, write songs. If you talk politics, talk politics,” Lorenz said.

Not only could an endorsement be dangerous for voters, in some cases, it has the potential to be dangerous to a celebrity’s career. Lorenz talked about how getting involved in politics is “not a good PR move” and can end up splitting a fan base.

Fans see it a bit differently. Weissflach is a Taylor Swift fan and follows her on Instagram, and her opinions on Taylor Swift did not change after her endorsement. Wittke has a similar view.

“Kid Rock, I grew up listening to the guy, (and) he endorsed Trump,” Wittke said. “Because they say something it shouldn’t affect what I think of them at the end of the day.”

It all seems to come down to the celebrity and the fan. Weissflach said that she doesn’t care if a celebrity she likes endorses a candidate. What would be better than that though is if they encourage their fans to go vote. It takes a much more proactive approach.

“It’s very important to vote,” Weissflach said. “It’s a privilege to vote, it’s a right to vote, you should use it.”

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