The Daily Populous Saturday August 3rd, 2024 morning edition
Authored by abcnews.go.com and submitted by ThinkerSis

Taylor Swift fans have a blank space on their ballots this year, and they're ready to write Kamala Harris' name.

Swifties for Kamala -- a grassroots group of Taylor Swift superfans working to get Harris elected -- has quickly amassed a groundswell of support.

The group got its start the same day President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, after Emerald Medrano, a 22-year-old fan from Texas, decided he and his fellow Swifties needed to jump into the action.

Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris gestures as she speaks at a campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 30, 2024. Elijah Nouvelage/AFP via Getty Images

"I feel like us U.S. Swifties should mass organize and help campaign for Kamala Harris and spread how horrendous Project 2025 would be to help get people's butts down to the polls in November," Medrano wrote in a post on X that day. "Like if we don't want democracy to end we really need to move and push blue votes."

Just a week and a half later, the group has a Discord server with more than 300 members and tens of thousands more followers on social media -- and they've already heard from Harris' campaign.

"Having that support from the Harris campaign is really exciting and fun," Medrano said. "I feel really honored that they acknowledge us as Swifties and what we're doing as good."

As "Swifties for Kamala" gains steam, they're brainstorming how they can harness the power of their fandom as effectively as possible.

Swift's record-breaking "Eras Tour" stops by three U.S. states before Election Day -- Florida, Louisiana and Indiana -- all of which went red in 2020. The group is timing campaign events to the tour dates and registering concertgoers to vote, among other actions.

Taylor Swift performs at San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy, for her Eras Tour concert, Saturday, July 13, 2024. Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP, FILE

Swift herself has not yet endorsed a candidate in the 2024 election, and the group has yet to hear from her team, but fans expect she will likely come out in support of Harris in the coming months. The once publicly apolitical singer has become more vocal about her views in recent years, and endorsed Biden in 2020.

She also came out strongly against Trump in 2020, accusing him of "stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism" and putting "millions of Americans' lives at risk in an effort to hold on to power."

And Swift's political seal of approval could prove powerful. After she made Instagram posts in 2018 and 2023 encouraging fans to register to vote, tens of thousands of people did just that.

Even so, "Swifties for Kamala" are not waiting for their star to make a statement -- they're speaking now.

"It would obviously be great if Taylor did endorse because we've seen what kind of power she has to mobilize," 25-year-old Carly Long, the group's co-founder, told ABC News. "But I think that that's not what we're waiting for. We have a lot of autonomy as Swifties within our own community to empower ourselves to make action."

bassplayerguy on August 2nd, 2024 at 22:22 UTC »

If Swifties would unite with the Beyhive it would be over before it even started.

Spare_Substance5003 on August 2nd, 2024 at 22:03 UTC »

Swift may be one of Harris' trump cards around October or so. Pun intended.

Citizen_Lunkhead on August 2nd, 2024 at 21:58 UTC »

Her finger is on the button, as soon as Taylor Swift endorses Harris, Trump's going to have a pretty bad time. You don't piss off K-Pop stans and you don't piss off Swifties.