Joe Biden was, perhaps, inevitably going to be forced to quit his race for re-election.
But George Clooney’s July 10 New York Times op-ed urging the president to step aside was considered one of the major turning points in the public and donor class’ opinion of Biden’s fitness for office.
The scathing column marked the start of Hollywood stars and popular music artists having an outsized presence in the Democrats’ home stretch to try and re-capture the White House.
A couple of celebrity endorsements were built up in the media as absolutely critical needle movers. Whether or not Taylor Swift would back vice president Kamala Harris, for example, was obsessed about for months. When Swift waded into the fray and endorsed Harris in September, her nod was considered a major win — racking up 10 million likes and sending a surge of 400,000 Swifties to a voter registration site. Read one ABC headline: “How Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris could change the election end game.”
Other luminaries likewise tried to boost the veep, who had fewer than four months to sprint from Biden stepping down to Election Day. Beyoncé took the stage to join Harris at a mega rally in Houston (a stunt which received some backlash as rally-goers were disappointed she didn’t sing). Eminem, Lizzo, Bruce Springsteen, Megan Thee Stallion, Lady Gaga, Cardi B, Bad Bunny, Usher, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stevie Wonder also endorsed Harris. Several appeared with the candidate at rallies.
Charli XCX praising Harris as “brat” in July was considered an early victory to capture the youth vote. A CNN headline one month ago read: “How ‘brat summer’ set up Kamala Harris’ remarkable run.”
Yet for all the Gen Z courtship and endorsements from celebrities with legions of young fans, vote tallies showed that Harris significantly lost ground among 18-to-29 year olds compared to Biden.
All this seems to support a 2010 North Carolina State University study which showed young voters are not swayed by celebrity endorsements of political candidates, and sometimes even like the candidate less as a result of receiving a celebrity endorsement (they also often liked the celebrity less, as well).
And then there was a pro-Harris ad narrated by Julia Roberts, which depicted two wives secretly voting for Harris while married to apparent Trump supporters. While some praised the ad as cleverly trying to peel off conservative-leaning female voters, others slammed the commercial as condescending.
Of course, it’s impossible to know how well Harris might have performed if she hadn’t gotten — and embraced — all these endorsements. It’s always possible they were still a net positive for her campaign despite losing the race by a fair margin.
But in retrospect — and it’s always easy to say such things in retrospect — Trump’s viral stunt “working” at a McDonald’s (which showed him warmly interacting with customers) and sitting for a three-hour chat with podcast king Joe Rogan on Oct. 25 (where the former president came across as relatively normal — at least, by his standards), might have been far more effective than having Hollywood stars on stage and in ads — particularly when trying to court voters in the critical Rust Belt “blue wall” states who might not necessarily associate Hollywood values with their own.
NBC News’ Gadi Schwartz said on election night that many college students during informal exit polling in Arizona cited Rogan’s interview with Trump as critical. “It’s been surprising how often the topic of the Joe Rogan podcast has come up,” Schwartz said. “We’ve talked to several students now who say they listened to that podcast with the former president and that was the deciding factor for them. And they also said that if Kamala Harris would have appeared on that podcast, they may have had their vote [changed].” One of NBC’s election night panelists echoed they had also heard young voters citing Rogan’s interview.
The episode racked up 46 million views on YouTube alone. Rogan had likewise offered Harris an interview but said her campaign refused have the candidate travel to his Austin studio and that she would only sit for one hour.
This isn’t to say Trump didn’t also get celebrity endorsements, and try to utilize them — Hulk Hogan, Dana White, Zachary Levi and Kid Rock, among them. If Trump had a bunch of A-listers, he surely would have had many on stage at his rallies, just as Harris did.
So it might be the case that Trump’s lack of celebrity endorsements, and their lower star wattage, might have helped him. Or perhaps it’s that celebrities like Rogan, White and Hogan appeal to the young male demographic that was one of Harris’ Achilles heels and they also seem more working-class friendly when targeting voters in Pennsylvania. As L.A.-area major fundraiser Jon Vein warned in The Hollywood Reporter in August: “You don’t want to overdo the California, you don’t want to overdo the Hollywood when you’re painting a broad brush with the country.”
Again, it’s likely impossible to know for certain right now whether celebrities truly helped or hurt either candidate without taking a peek into some alternate universe where Harris beat Trump last night. We are, however, in this one.
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