Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman said that Taylor Swift should endorse whomever she prefers for the presidential election, as some Democrats look to secure the support of the global pop star before November.
Speaking with Newsweek on Wednesday, Fetterman said that whoever Swift decides to endorse is “her business,” adding, “Whoever she dates, wherever she has a concert, that’s all her.”
“She’s the biggest star in the world and she can pretty much do whatever she wants,” Fetterman, a Democrat, told Newsweek, adding, “And she certainly doesn’t care what I think, although we were happy to be born in the same hospital,” in West Reading, Pennsylvania.
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Reports surfaced earlier this year that some members of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign have set their sights on earning Swift’s endorsement, who supported the president and Vice President Kamala Harris in 2020. Rumors of Democrats vying for Swift’s support, as first reported by The New York Times in January, have also fed into far-right conspiracy theories that the singer is part of an elaborate plot to hand Biden his second term in the White House.
Swift has yet to endorse a candidate for November, although her influence has proven to motivate younger voters to take part in the election process. During Tuesday’s primary vote in Tennessee, the singer made a post to her Instagram story encouraging her followers to get out and vote, writing, “I wanted to remind you guys to vote the people who most represent YOU into power.”
Although Swift did not include any political endorsements in her post, Tennessee voters ended up giving Biden one of his strongest wins yet—the president took home 92.2 percent of the vote, and has only outperformed in the state of Maine, where he won 92.9 percent of voters on Tuesday.
Swift also motivated voters in the fall, encouraging her Instagram followers on National Voter Registration Day, September 19, to register to vote through nonpartisan site Vote.org. According to the organization, her post ended up with more than 35,000 registrations, and CEO Andrew Hailey said in a statement at the time that there was a 115 percent spike in registrations from newly eligible 18-year-olds when compared to the same day in 2022.
Preliminary polling has shown that Biden is losing the support of younger generations heading into November, which was a major force behind his first White House win in 2020. Many voters have expressed concerns with Biden’s policies toward the Israel-Hamas war, while others are disappointed in the possibility of facing another rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner.
A poll from Fox News published on Sunday showed that Trump was leading among voters under age 30, with 51 percent of respondents saying they plan to show up for the former president. Biden earned 45 percent of the vote.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.