More than 10,000 Taylor Swift fans gathered Tuesday night on a virtual call over Zoom in support of Kamala Harris — and they were subject to endless puns from the multiple congressional Democrats who also joined the call.
“Just like you’ve done every time before, we will push this boulder up the hill, and we will win in November,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said. “I am looking forward to the era of the first woman president. So please get in the fight, knock on doors, make phone calls and let’s elect Kamala Harris the next president of the United States. Swifties, you can get this done.”
As Swift has continued to grow her influence during her worldwide Eras Tour, Democrats were hoping that her fans — who have crashed websites, bumped economies and done numbers on music charts — will channel that energy to help at the ballot box in November.
“As we know from the last solar eclipse, Donald Trump will stare directly in the sun but never in the mirror. So we have our work ahead of us to make sure we defeat this antihero wannabe,” Sen. Ed Markey said. “In the words of Taylor Swift, I never trust a narcissist.”
The puns were reminiscent of last year’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Ticketmaster, where senators incorporated Swift lyrics in their criticisms of the company after fans spent hours trying to get tickets through their site, frustrating many and even prompting a lawsuit. The cringiness was similar to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 calls for voters to “Pokémon GO to the polls.” But the puns, this time around, were even more exaggerated.
“We are going to set off a powerful, unstoppable chain reaction of countermoves, and the MAGA movement will be defeated by our dominoes cascading in a line together,” Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont said. “We need to be dressing for revenge. Don’t get sad, get even.”
Swifties for Kamala, which is not directly affiliated with the Harris campaign, is one of the multiple groups that have emerged to mobilize specific demographics since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Others include White Dudes for Harris, Black Women for Harris and Broadway for Harris.
This particular coalition has received a lot of attention as Democrats continue to seek a coveted endorsement from Swift herself. While she has supported Democrats in previous elections, including by endorsing Biden in 2020, the singer has remained mostly quiet this election cycle. She urged voters in March to go to the polls on Super Tuesday and “vote the people who most represent YOU into power,” without specifying at the time if there was a specific politician or party she was backing.
The group behind Tuesday night’s call is not directly associated with Swift, but the organizers, who said on the call they met through Twitter, have said they felt the need to act regardless of her participation in the race.
Volunteers in the group communicate mainly through Discord, where they have multiple channels, including one analyzing one of Democrats’ favorite talking points against Republicans. That’s Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation blueprint for a second Trump term.
Swifties for Kamala has received so much attention on social media that a competing coalition, Swifties for Trump, emerged in response online.
During their call, which lasted two hours, Swifties for Kamala said they had raised over $122,000 for the Harris campaign through their website. Other lawmakers included on the call were Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Chris Deluzio. Singer-songwriter Carole King also joined and gave the Swifties advice on how to door-knock for Harris.
“You can ask the question, ‘Well, what really matters to you? What’s important?’ And they’ll tell you, and you listen. The key to door-knocking is asking a good question and then listening, and then, depending on what the person says, you speak your heart,” King said. “Don’t be afraid, because there is nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
Swifties for Kamala organizers were not taking questions during the call and did not respond to questions sent via email. A spokesperson for Swift did not immediately respond to NOTUS’ request for comment.
“A lot of people have asked how we got all these great political speakers to join us tonight,” April Glick Pulito, political director of Swifties for Kamala, said during the call. “It’s because they know the power of the Taylor Swift community.”
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Oriana González is a reporter at NOTUS.