Young people could be influenced at the ballot box to vote for the presidential candidate endorsed by Taylor Swift or Beyoncé.
According to a new poll, the popular singers could sway Gen Z voters.
Many Gen Zers— those born between 1997 and 2012—will be heading to the polls for the first time to vote either for former President Donald Trump or Vice-President Kamala Harris, who is the presumptive Democratic nominee. There are also four other candidates including, Cornel West, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Jill Stein and Chase Oliver.
In a new poll conducted for Newsweek, 34 percent of Gen Z respondents said they were "significantly more likely" or "more likely" to vote for a candidate endorsed by Swift. That figure jumped up for Beyoncé at 40 percent.
The poll was conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies on July 29 and questioned 1,750 registered voters aged 18 years and older with a 2.34 percent margin of error.
Of the Gen Z voters polled, 26 percent said they were either "significantly less likely" or "less likely" to vote for the same candidate as Swift. Eighteen percent of Gen Z respondents said the same thing about Beyoncé.
The remaining 26 percent and 29 percent said they would not be influenced by Swift and Beyoncé's endorsement respectively.
They have yet to publicly endorse any candidates this year, but both Grammy-award winning artists gave their seal of approval to the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket in 2020.
The results of this recent poll track with other research that measured Swift's influence on politics.
Voter registrations also surged after Swift encouraged fans to sign up to vote.
In 2023 on National Voter Registration Day, Swift posted to Instagram, where she urged her fans to register on the nonpartisan, nonprofit website Vote.org. According to the organization, it received more than 35,000 registrations after her post, which was almost a 25 percent increase over the same day the previous year.
Beyoncé has already granted Harris the rights to use her song "Freedom" as her campaign anthem and features in Harris' latest campaign video.
A series of experts previously told Newsweek that celebrity endorsements generally did not always guarantee a surge in votes for a candidate, but that seems to be changing with younger generations.
"It's a door-opener and a bridge to younger voters," said Louis Perron, a PhD political consultant. "It can help introduce the vice president to a younger generation as a politician they can relate to. The celebrity endorsements are a welcome development but do not expect too much from it or rely on it."
Richard Laermer, CEO of RLM Public Relations, spoke about how the impact of the "hype" created by celebrities has changed over the years.
"Barbra Streisand, when she was in her prime, was talking about Clinton, and nobody really cared," Laermer said. "She didn't have the pull that Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have."
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