The combined support of celebrities such as George Clooney, Taylor Swift, Beyonce and more couldn’t help Kamala Harris secure the presidency in Tuesday’s election.
A stream of A-listers from Hollywood and the music world all threw their weight behind the Democrat during the bitterly-fought campaign, in the hope that their millions of supporters and followers would move the needle.
But not even the endorsement of Swift seemed to make any difference. Nor did the backing of Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, or Ariana Grande. Harrison Ford warned of the threat to democracy to no avail.
Lebron James, Bruce Springsteen, Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Lopez, Lizzo, Eminem, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a former Republican governor of California all spoke out for Harris. Julia Roberts and Robert De Niro similarly appeared to have little sway with the public.
Charli xcx tweeted “Kamala IS Brat” in July and the Harris campaign even adopted her album’s color scheme on social media.
But in the end, none of it was enough to defeat the new and diverse coalition of voters supporting Donald Trump. The question, as Democrats search for answers about what went wrong, is why?
Hollywood Reporter writer Seth Abramovitch told The Guardian that the audiences of these celebrities, apart from Swift, “were already inclined to vote for Kamala.”
Swift manages to appeal to both sides of the aisle, but not to the voters who swung the election for Trump this time, namely Latinos and Black men.
Arizona State University professor Margaretha Bentley told the paper that “celebrity endorsements can increase civic engagement and voter registrations” but “it has not proven to have a direct impact on how people make their voting decisions.”
“Voters may do more research after a celebrity endorses, but they will vote based on their own values and not necessarily the values of the celebrity endorser,” she added.
Read more at Theindependant.com
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