Celebrities on the campaign trail
The stars usually aren’t game-changers.
Tuesday’s midterm elections were a mixed bag for Washington pols – Democrats won back the House while Republicans kept the Senate – but they were something of a bust for Hollywood celebrities.
Oprah Winfrey’s support of Stacey Abrams in the Georgia gubernatorial race? Beyonce’s endorsement of Beto O’Rourke in Texas? Taylor Swift backing Phil Bredesen in a Senate race in Tennessee? Close, so close ... but no cigars for their chosen candidates.
Even actress Olivia Wilde’s mom, journalist Leslie Cockburn, lost her race for a Virginia House seat despite her daughter’s loving endorsement.
If nothing else, the elections prove again that the influence of celebrities in American politics is rather less than it appears.
“Celebrities don’t really have these huge, overall gamechanging effects,” says David Jackson, a political science professor at Bowling Green State University. “We shouldn’t expect them to.” They might help in very close races, but their net effect is “always going to be on the margins,” he says.
Besides, the big-name endorsements were in races in the deep-red South, says Mark Harvey, graduate program director at the University of St. Mary in Kansas and author of “Celebrity Influence: Politics, Persuasion, and Issue-based Advocacy.” He says his research suggests celebrity influence is more persuasive in advocating for specific issues rather than for candidates.
“My hypothesis is that in a lot of these (midterm) races, you’re looking at the South where there’s an ingrained culture that at this moment in political history is very skeptical of coastal elites,” he says. “One question I have is to what extent are people in this very conservative, anti-elitist culture rejecting Hollywood or entertainment people at face value?
“When you’re talking about Republicans versus Democrats, you’re talking about tribes, not issues, and it’s hard to persuade a tribe.”
Next up: 2020
So what does that portend for the 2020 presidential campaign? Will celebs be even more out-front about their politics, or will more of them go back to keeping their preferences to themselves? Don’t count on that.
Peter Levine, an associate dean at the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University in Massachusetts, says most political scientists start with skepticism that celebrity endorsements make a big difference – and the midterms only proved them right. There are just too many other factors in play to pin down a loss or a win on a celeb’s say-so.
“Does (a celeb endorsement) hurt? I don’t think you can conclude that from these results,” Levine says. “My big-picture read is that the midterm elections were pretty much in line with predictions. I don’t see any evidence (of a celebrity negative effect); they just did not have a big positive effect.”
But what might change about the partisan breakdown of celebrities and politics? Democrats usually get the lion’s share, in quality and quantity. But Republicans have President Donald Trump, a former reality TV star, as their main celeb, and he has showed he doesn’t need (or want) anyone else in his spotlight.
For the record, the only proven case of a celebrity making a difference in the outcome of an election remains Winfrey’s endorsement of Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the 2007-08 Democratic pri- mary campaign, which is believed to have moved about 1 million votes to Obama, according to a study of the influence of celebrity endorsements in presidential politics.
But it didn’t work out that way for Democrat Abrams, who aimed to become the first African-American woman governor but fell just short (although there are still votes to be counted and there may be a runoff next month) against Republican Brian Kemp in Georgia. Winfrey not only endorsed Abrams, but she also showed up in Georgia to campaign for her, including knocking on doors. Even if Abrams concedes, it seems clear Winfrey helped put Abrams closer to winning than she otherwise would have been.
In Texas, Democrat Beto O’Rourke also came very close to unseating incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz after a campaign that saw the Democrat surging in polls and fundraising even in Texas. Then, at the last minute, Houston native Beyonce endorsed him on Election Day on Instagram.
Just hours before polls were set to close in Texas, she donned a black-and-white baseball cap reading “Beto for Senate” and told her 119 million followers to vote. “We need you. We all need each other, because when we are truly united we are unstoppable.”
On Tuesday night, some fans blamed the superstar for O’Rourke’s loss, saying it was too little, too late.
And in Tennessee, no single endorsement made bigger waves than the one Democrat Phil Bredesen received courtesy of Nashville’s Swift, who also denounced his Republican opponent, Marsha Blackburn, in her first political endorse- ment or statement of any kind.
But Bredesen was soundly defeated – and Swift was swiftly mocked online by prominent Blackburn supporters. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t move the needle.
“If that side doesn’t win, there’s a tendency to make easy conclusions that the celebrity endorsements didn’t work,” Jackson said. “It’s more complicated than that.”
Nor does it mean that Swift (or Oprah or Beyonce) will give up now. Swift is unlikely to return to “The Old Taylor” – the one who wouldn’t touch political matters with a 10-foot pole; instead the “new” Taylor could make waves and wield significant influence in years to come.
Getting the vote out
One possible Swift effect, says Amy Becker, a communication professor at Loyola University in Maryland, is her ability to inspire voter registration. If some of Swift’s young fans registered to vote because of her this time, they could become more regular voters as they grow into age brackets that tend to vote reliably.
“She might have brought some other people into the political system that wouldn’t have thought about voting before,” Becker says.
So does anybody expect candidates in 2020 to tell the likes of Oprah to cool it? Not a chance. Besides, coming close, especially in the Abramsversus-Kemp race, is itself an achievement, Harvey says.
“She’s a progressive black woman candidate in Georgia in a place where people like to vote for white men who are conservative, and the fact she’s gone this distance is miraculous,” he says. “If Oprah didn’t push her over the top, it’s still quite substantial that an African-American woman got this close. It’s a hell of a run.”
Besides, what candidate is going to say “Oprah, please don’t campaign for me”? Harvey jokes.
Says Levine: “I think candidates (in 2020) will probably be glad if Oprah shows up, but they shouldn’t count on it as a strategy.”