Taylor Swift and Donald Trump have a similar favorability rating in a new Inquirer poll
A post-debate poll conducted by The Inquirer, New York Times and Siena College asked likely voters about pop superstar Taylor Swift.
Taylor Swift and former President Donald Trump are both less popular among Pennsylvania voters than Vice President Kamala Harris, according to a new poll by The Inquirer, New York Times, and Siena College.
Between Sept. 11 and 16, the poll surveyed 1,082 likely Pennsylvania voters by phone, asking about the presidential candidates and their debate performances, the economy, abortion — and Swift, who endorsed Harris in a viral Instagram post immediately after the Sept. 10 debate. Swift’s endorsement post led hundreds of thousands of people to a voter registration website in just 24 hours.
After asking whether respondents have very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, or very unfavorable opinions of former Trump and Harris, the next person in question was the massively successful superstar, who was born in Reading.
» READ MORE: Taylor Swift, a Berks County native, ignited a prepared Pa. base when she endorsed Kamala Harris
The data suggests that Pennsylvania voters like Swift only slightly better than Trump, who had a 45% favorability rating compared to Swift’s 46%. But that comparison falls within the margin of error, leaving the former president and superstar statistically tied.
Harris had a higher favorability rating than Swift, at 51%.
But most of those who favor Swift only favor her somewhat, at 28% — compared to 19% who view her very favorably. On the other hand, most who don’t favor her really don’t like her, with 21% viewing her as very unfavorable, compared to 12% who view her as somewhat unfavorable.
Trump would agree with those unimpressed respondents, who declared on Truth Social in all caps on Sunday that he is a Swift hater — though he has also described her as “unusually beautiful.”
Only 2% of Pennsylvania’s registered voters haven’t heard of Swift, and 18% either don’t know or refused to answer.
The poll was conducted in the days immediately following the debate — and Swift’s endorsement.
That timing could explain why the poll found 68% of Harris supporters who are likely to vote in Pennsylvania think favorably of Swift compared to just 23% of Trump supporters likely to go to the polls in the state. Swift’s support goes up a little, to 29%, among likely voters who identify themselves as Republican.
But it could be a question of whether the chicken or egg came first, because the battleground state’s Swifties had already started organizing for Harris.
Gena Jaffe, a Swift fan who lives in Bucks County, said in an interview about Swifties supporting Harris that she believes there is a “very high probability” that someone supports Harris if they’re a Swift fan.
“If you’re a Swiftie, you’re a Harris supporter, for the most part, because of the types of people that she attracts,” said Jaffe, a business owner and lawyer. “That being said, I have now seen ... people who are MAGA supporters who are trying to sell their Eras tour tickets.”
The singer has been criticized for getting political just as she’s been criticized for not being political enough.
Swift did not speak out about politics until after Trump was elected, though she did signal support for LGBTQ rights through her songs and she participated in a 2008 PSA about standing up to LGBTQ discrimination after 15-year-old Lawrence King was shot for being gay.
She didn’t share her opinion about the candidates in the 2016 election, a decision she said in a 2020 documentary that she later regretted. “I need to be on the right side of history,” Swift said in the doc.
Swift made her first political endorsement in 2018 for a Democrat in the Tennessee gubernatorial race, and she also called for gun control that year. She began publicly speaking out against Trump the following year and endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
In August, Trump shared an AI-generated image falsely depicting Swift as endorsing him, which Swift said brought her “to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter.”
A few weeks later at the MTV Video Music Awards, the night after the debate, Swift, who is known for dropping subtle messages to her fans known as “easter eggs,” sported a dress by the same designer that former first lady Michelle Obama wore at the Democratic National Convention last month. She urged the audience to register to vote during her final speech of the night.