The DNC Is Using Taylor Swift’s Miami Eras Tour Shows for Massive Voter Push

Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign has been defined by exactly the thing that Taylor Swift sang that she was sick of: Running as fast as she can. A historically short presidential run demands creative strategies to reach voters where they are, which is why the Democratic National Committee is surrounding Swift’s Eras Tour shows in Miami this weekend with Harris messaging.

When the Swiftie faithful descend on Florida beginning Friday for the singer’s three-night run of shows at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, they’ll be greeted by billboards around the city welcoming them to their “Voting Era” and the country’s “Kamala Era,” directing audiences to the DNC’s IWillVote.com website, where voters can check their voter registration, find their polling place, learn about early and mail voting options, and more. On Sunday, boat billboards near the venue will be added to the push.

All weekend in Florida and seven battleground states, too, Snapchat users will be able to share selfies with a custom “In My Voting Era” filter, where users will be prompted to choose what they are “fearless for” this November, with options like reproductive rights, racial justice, student loan debt relief, LGBTQ+ rights, and more, to customize their shareable social photo. The filter, too, will point to the voting info website.

“We know that it’s not just Floridians, but people from across the country who come to these concerts, and that her fans tune in live nationwide, DNC Communications Director Rosemary Boeglin tells Vanity Fair by phone. “We’re trying to reach some of the key coalitions that are important to get Vice President Harris, Governor Tim Walz, and Democrats up and down the ballot elected this November,” she said. “We’re trying to be creative and strategic about how we’re reaching not just young voters, but women, the LGBTQ community, and other voters who are big fans of Taylor Swift, and drive them to IWillVote.com.”

The push around the final leg of Swift’s wildly successful Eras Tour is yet another example of the party trying to reach voters through non-traditional media outlets. A rally featuring Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, streamed alongside a World of Warcraft campaign on Twitch, treating gamers to the Democrats’ messaging and courting the crucial Blood Elf vote. Earlier this week, Harris sat for a radio interview with Charlamagne tha God, a little over a week after talking about abortion on Call Her Daddy, and there’s Walz talking to the We Rate Dogs guy. The Dems have even taken to the sky in recent days to promote Harris, employing skywriters to puff out Harris 2024 messages above several NFL stadiums during games.

“We need to be innovative about how we’re reaching young people in particular,” Boeglin says. “We live in a fractured media environment.”

Aligning with Swift, in particular, is a strong move: The singer carries a massive fanbase who not only flock to her shows from all corners of the world, but track the concerts and their ambiance via livestreams and social media, ballooning the impact of a billboard to well beyond just those who happen to pass by. Swift endorsed Harris minutes after the first—and probably only—debate between Harris and Trump, posting on social media that “the simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth. I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election.”

The impact was immediate, with donations to the Harris campaign gushing in, and Harris exiting the stage from her post-debate watch party, just minutes after Swift posted her nod to social media, to the strains of Swift’s song “The Man.” Trump, naturally, freaked out and said publicly that he never liked Swift anyway (he did, enough to use AI images to pretend like she’d endorsed him). The Harris campaign posted patriotic friendship bracelets to its webshop, a follow-up to the bracelet-making stations they’d offered at this summer’s DNC, then Walz sported beaded friendship bracelets of his own during the vice presidential debate, and the Democrats bought billboard space in Times Square and on the Las Vegas strip to flout Swift’s endorsement, complete with “Ready for It” messaging. Swift also used her Video of the Year acceptance speech at the MTV VMAs to remind viewers to register and make a plan to vote in the upcoming election.

Consider: In the 24 hours after President Joe Biden said that he’d step aside (though without including a link to the site), only 109,208 visitors went to vote.org overall. In the 24 hours after Swift’s endorsement, 405,999 visitors clicked the custom vote.gov link she shared with her message on Instagram. A 2023 study found that some 55 percent of Swift’s fans are registered Democrats, with the rest split nearly evenly between Independent and Republican parties, and that 53 percent of adults in the U.S. self-identify as Swift fans. Paired with the spending and willingness to travel to see the singer’s live shows, not to mention the sales of her albums that made Swift the first artist to reach billionaire status based solely on money made from her work, there’s no doubting the cultural influence Swift has over a large segment of the country. In the crucial final days before voting day, Democrats are focused on making sure not only to inform voters, but to make sure they get to the polls and avoid a repeat of 2016.