Pop superstar Taylor Swift urged people to register to vote Wednesday evening during MTV’s 2024 Video Music Awards (VMAs).
“If you are over 18, please register to vote for something else that’s very important … presidential election,” Swift said while accepting the award for “Video of the Year” at the ceremony in Elmont, N.Y.
Her message comes just a day after she endorsed Vice President Harris in the election, now less than two months away. In the Instagram post announcing her support, the “You Are in Love” singer said Harris “fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”
“I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” Swift wrote Tuesday evening, after Harris and her GOP rival former President Trump faced off on the debate stage.
According to the General Services Administration (GSA), more than 330,000 visitors made their way to vote.gov after Swift announced she would back the Democratic nominee.
Trump brushed off the chart-dominating superstar’s endorsement of Harris, suggesting Swift could “pay a price for it in the marketplace.”
“I was not a Taylor Swift fan,” Trump said in a “Fox & Friends” interview early Wednesday,
“It was just a question of time. She couldn’t possibly endorse Biden. … But she’s a very liberal person,” the former president continued. “She seems to always endorse a Democrat, and she’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace.”
Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), praised Swift for her endorsement after it was posted, saying he was “incredibly grateful, first of all, to Taylor Swift.” He specifically pointed to her signature as “childless cat lady,” an apparent reference to attacks on Harris by Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio).
“I say that as a cat owner, a fellow cat owner. That was eloquent, and that was clear,” Walz said. “And that’s the type of courage we need in America to stand up.”
The Harris campaign also quickly seized on the celebrity endorsement, including it in their fundraising emails.