The clowns are for Kamala.
Violent J, who makes up one-half of the rap duo Insane Clown Posse, recently told an interviewer during a segment on “The Daily Show” that he supported Vice President Kamala Harris. His biggest issues: taxation of the poor, women’s rights and incurring the wrath of his mother if he does not vote.
“I want her to win because she’s a Democrat, and I love my mom,” Violent J, a Detroit native, said in one of the few printable quotes from an expletive-laced interview that aired last week.
The celebrity endorsement from Violent J — whose legal name is Joseph Frank Bruce — might not be as coveted as, say, Taylor Swift’s, but Insane Clown Posse has one of the most devoted fan bases in popular music. Up to two million people self-identify as fans, or Juggalos or Juggalettes, according to some assessments.
The group’s supporters tend to be young, male, and disengaged from the political process, and they sometimes view themselves as outsiders. Those are the exact types of people both Ms. Harris and former President Donald J. Trump are trying to win over in a very tight race. Insane Clown Posse’s roots in Detroit mean that Michigan, a key battleground state, is the heart of the Juggalo movement.
Which is not to say, of course, that clowns could decide the election.
Insane Clown Posse has a complicated history with the federal government. In 2014, the duo unsuccessfully sued the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation after the F.B.I.’s National Gang Intelligence Center classified Juggalos as “a loosely organized hybrid gang.” The center cited episodes in which people suspected of being “Juggalo associates” had committed violent acts. The rap pair’s argument was that they had been misunderstood.
Over the next 13 days, the race will be a mad scramble for undecided or tuned-out voters. Mr. Bruce may speak for at least a handful of them.
During the “Daily Show” interview, Mr. Bruce learned how to say the vice president’s given name — “Fresh,” he said, when he mastered the pronunciation. He said he had grown to dislike Mr. Trump over his plans to build a border wall, and he offered his support for environmental issues: “Let me tell you what a superior animal is: a whale.”
His was maybe the most unconventional endorsement in Ms. Harris’s recent wave of celebrity support. On Tuesday evening, the rapper Eminem, another Detroit native, took the stage at a rally and urged Michigan residents to vote.
“I don’t think anyone wants an America where people are worried about retribution,” he told the crowd before throwing his support behind Ms. Harris and introducing the night’s headliner, former President Barack Obama, who promptly rapped a few bars of Eminem’s hit “Lose Yourself.”
The value of a celebrity endorsement is difficult to measure. There is research that suggests Oprah Winfrey had a decisive influence in Mr. Obama’s primary election success in 2008, driving as many as a million votes his way, according to a report by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Enthusiasm in the diffuse age of social media is harder to gauge: Ms. Swift’s endorsement in September drove about 406,000 people to Vote.gov, a government-run website with voter-registration tools, but that number does not mean that many people actually registered to vote.
“Almost anything can matter, but it probably won’t,” Mark Harvey, the author of “Celebrity Influence: Politics, Persuasion, and Issue-Based Advocacy,” said in an interview. “We really only have one study that has indicated that an actual endorsement has made a difference, and that is Oprah. Most of the time, when you ask people when they’re going to vote, it’s going to be on the economy or party ID. It’s not really about what Taylor Swift thinks.”
On the effect of Eminem and Insane Clown Posse, two acts from a crucial swing state, Mr. Harvey added, “If I were Harris, I’d think, ‘If I could strip any of those people away, I’m going to try to do it — even if they’re clowns.’”
The Harris campaign on Wednesday did not immediately comment on the universe of endorsements, including the one from half of Insane Clown Posse. The other half, Joseph Utsler, who performs as Shaggy 2 Dope, has not said which candidate he supports.
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