When Kamala Harris held a town hall for supporters in Michigan on Thursday night, she was joined on stage by Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey, the 70-year-old media mogul best known for her long-running talk show, has largely shied away from the political spotlight in recent years. But despite being unaffiliated with either of the US’s two main political parties, she made a surprise appearance at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month, endorsing Harris’s bid for the White House and calling on viewers to “choose common sense over nonsense.”
On Thursday night, she interviewed Harris before an in-person audience of some 400 people. Hundreds of thousands more watched a livestream from home.
“This grassroots people-powered movement behind Kamala Harris has unleashed a unifying force unlike anything we’ve seen in politics in a very long time,” Winfrey said. “I know lots of people are feeling it because it actually is hope and joy rising.”
Winfrey is just one of many big stars who have announced their support for Harris and her running mate Tim Walz. A number of others have come out for Donald Trump.
But does celebrity endorsement actually boost a candidate’s chances at the ballot box? There are some signs that Winfrey’s support for Harris could improve her chances of winning the White House in November.
Academics at Northwestern University and the University of Maryland estimated that Winfrey’s endorsement was responsible for 1 million additional votes for Barack Obama back in 2008, particularly among women.
The surprise endorsement from Taylor Swift minutes after last week’s presidential debate would also be expected to move the dial in Harris’s favor. Swift wrote on Instagram that she was voting for Harris “because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”
Vote.org later reported receiving more than 35,000 new voter registrations via Swift’s link.
However, other surveys suggest that while most Americans know who Swift will be voting for, they are not swayed by her message. An ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 81% of voters said Swift’s endorsement would make no difference to how they cast their ballots.
Despite this uncertainty surrounding celebrity endorsements’ impact on elections, Democrats have welcomed them as every vote counts especially if celebrities can motivate younger voters and those less likely to show up at polls.
Trump has also welcomed celebrity endorsements but bristled at A-list backers of his opponents other than Swift. When actor George Clooney urged President Joe Biden to suspend his re-election bid earlier this summer, Trump responded by saying Clooney should get out of politics and go back to television.
