Heavy/HGTV/YouTube HGTV's Erin Napier
With the arrival of Election Day 2024, millions of Americans are on edge about the presidential race between former President Donald Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris — including multiple HGTV stars.
Most of the network’s personalities have kept their political views private. But as Election Day drew near, two of HGTV’s biggest stars — Erin Napier and Jenny Marrs — posted their reflections on navigating the rhetoric and “noise” of election season. But Napier took it one step further; “genuinely curious” about who her followers were voting for, she polled her fans and posted the results.
Erin & Ben Napier Have Stayed Out of Politics Since His 2013 Run for Office
On November 1, 2024, “Home Town” star Napier polled her followers in her Instagram Stories to find out which presidential nominee they planned to vote for. She included three American flag emoji above her poll, which allowed people to click on either “trump/vance” or “harris/walz.” Beneath it, Napier wrote, “A straw poll because I’m genuinely curious.”
The following morning, 10 hours after posting the poll, Napier shared the results: 52% of the vote went to Trump and 48% to Harris. She wrote, “71,000 total votes, mostly women for those curious.”
Napier also shared her personal thoughts on the upcoming election on the same day she shared her poll. She posted another Instagram Story with her views on political elections.
“I have this thought about elections every year: we vote how we vote because we are all making a bed together,” she wrote, equating it to her fans all living in the U.S., “but we can’t see how much sheet is hanging off the other side. all we can see is what we have on ours (our own life experience goes however it goes) and adjust from there (your vote the way that experience carries you).”
The mom of two did not share who she was voting for, recognizing how divisive it can be to do so. In the past, Napier has clapped back at social media followers who assumed that something she shared, including something as simple as an American flag, signified her political leanings.
When that happened in 2022, she tweeted, “if you think loving the USA must be a political affiliation, that says a lot about you and nothing about us. i am so tired of people LOOKING for things to separate us all by. just stop”
Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, she also tweeted, “Hating people for who they vote for is like hating people for their unchangeable past life experiences. You have to just accept it and learn to love people even with their differences. People with different beliefs can love each other. Can we please try harder?”
Before she and her husband Ben Napier landed a show on HGTV, he ran for city council as an Independent in their hometown of Laurel, Mississippi. His bid to represent Laurel with his platform of restoring the town to its original glory was unsuccessful, but he told CBS Sunday Morning in 2019 that had he won, it would have changed their trajectory.
“If I won it, we wouldn’t have been able to shoot ‘Home Town,’” he said. “I would have poured myself into that, into being, you know, a representative. But through (the show), we’ve been able to accomplish so much more. Not just in Laurel, but across America. We hear people all the time that are inspired by what has happened in Laurel and they’ve done that in their town.”
HGTV’s Jenny Marrs Says ‘God is in Control’ on Election Day
GettyJenny Marrs of HGTV’s “Fixer to Fabulous” speaks during Reel Magic Mornings with Dave and Jenny Marrs during the Bentonville Film Festival on June 22, 2022
Erin Napier’s friend and fellow HGTV star Jenny Marrs also weighed in ahead of Election Day 2024. On November 2, she posted the overnight surveillance tracker on one of her farm dogs on Instagram, showing how he tended to their sheep throughout the night.
At the start of the video, the “Fixer to Fabulous” star added text that said, “God is still in control today and He will be on Tuesday. A little reminder from my dog, Jack.”
Marrs’ post featured a lengthy reflection — an excerpt of a blog post she wrote that day — on the importance of trust and faith during an election season.
“If you are feeling anxious this weekend,” she wrote ahead of Election Day, “rest in the fact that at this very moment, I’m watching my sheep graze contentedly in the pasture without fear of the future despite the attacks of the past. They had no idea Jack was out there all night, keeping them safe. Just like we have no idea the ways in which God is working.”
She continued, “But we do know this: God is in control today and will be on Tuesday and on Wednesday and on the day after that and on the day after that. We can turn off the news and enjoy His peace (and, in turn, be peacemakers to those around us). “
Liv Lane is an entertainment writer who covers the Hallmark Channel, HGTV, American Idol and The Voice for Heavy. Based in Minneapolis, she has three decades of experience as a local and national radio host, columnist and publicist, interviewing and working with a wide range of celebrities over the years, from Deepak Chopra to Lil Nas X. More about Liv Lane
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