Swift lift
Taylor boosts voter numbers
In a surprise Instagram post on Monday, music megastar Taylor Swift broke her long silence on politics and encouraged her more than 112 million followers on the platform to register to vote.
It seems as though some of them rushed to do just that, according to Vote.org, a non-partisan group that seeks to increase voter turnout.
As of noon yesterday, more than 169,000 new people had registered on the site to vote, spokeswoman Kamari Guthrie said.
That put the number of new voters registered on the site in October, to date, at 240,329. By comparison, the group said 56,669 new voters registered in August and 190,178 registered in September. In October 2016, there were 405,149 new registrations on Vote.org for the whole month.
Guthrie said it was difficult to credit Swift directly for the spike in registrations because there was usually some kind of a surge just before voter registration deadlines, in election years, since ‘‘people wait until the deadline to register.’’ (As is the case in many states, yesterday was the deadline to register to vote in Tennessee in time for the November 6 election.)
However, among the 169,000 new registrations since Monday, more than half were by those ages 18 to 29.
‘‘One thing is clear, we’re seeing a massive surge in the 18-24 and 25-29
voters, which is her fan demographic. The 18-24 number almost doubled overnight,’’ Guthrie said. ‘‘Taylor Swift’s visibility on this issue is driving a lot of coverage of voter registration and it’s reaching many of her fans who would not otherwise be following news like this.’’
Vote.org also saw a definite jump in traffic in the wake of her Instagram post. The site typically has 14,078 average daily visitors, Guthrie said. In the 24 hours after Swift’s post – which specifically mentioned Vote.org – the site had 155,940 visitors.
In Tennessee, where Swift is registered to vote, Vote.org tracked 2144 new voter registrations in the 36
hours since the singer’s post, bringing October’s to-date total to 7554 – a sharp increase from 2811 registrations in September and 951 in August.
‘‘Overall, we were thrilled, especially to see millennials get involved,’’ Guthrie said. ‘‘Taylor’s post has helped bring out young voters. We’re especially happy to see that because we know voting is habitforming; statistically, a young person who votes in 2018 is 55 per cent more likely to vote again in 2020.’’
In her post, Swift vowed to vote for two Democratic candidates: former governor Phil Bredesen for the US Senate and Rep. Jim Cooper for reelection.
She also acknowledged her past reluctance to address political issues but said that had changed in the past two years:
‘‘I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country,’’ she wrote.
‘‘I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG.
‘‘I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of colour is terrifying, sickening and prevalent.’’
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