Could Taylor Swift sway the US election? Whether or not celebrity endorsements matter in 2024.

In the end, the 2024 US presidential election may be remembered not for a celebrity endorsement, but for the opposite. When George Clooney wrote in the New York Times last month, "I love Joe Biden. But we need a new nominee," he upended the contest. Less than two weeks later, the president announced he would not be seeking re-election. Danny Ocean, the bank robber and conman Clooney played in the Ocean's Eleven series, couldn't have pulled off a more spectacular switcheroo.

JFK had the Rat Pack; Ronald Reagan and Frank Sinatra. But actually, Australia arguably led the way in getting famous names involved in politics with Gough Whitlam's "It's Time" campaign in 1972. The surprisingly groovy music video, featuring Bert Newton, Jack Thompson, Jackie Weaver and others, must surely also hold the record for the most people wearing skivvies at any one time.

In the US, everything changed in 2008. Who can forget Beyoncé singing "At Last" during her close friend Barack Obama's inauguration? That event was the capstone of an election season in which everyone in Hollywood came out swinging for the coolest candidate ever to run for the Oval Office.

Former US President Barack Obama danced with his wife and former First Lady Michelle Obama as Beyonce sings "At Last" during the first Inaugural Ball on January 20, 2009, in Washington, DC. Image: Getty.

The alpha of the A-list, Oprah Winfrey, had been a supporter of Obama since before he even ran for president. It's hard to believe now, but Hillary Clinton was once the Democratic establishment's preferred candidate over Obama. When Winfrey told CNN's Larry King, that she preferred the senator from Illinois to the former first lady, her TV show's ratings fell by seven per cent.

"I cried my eyelashes off," Winfrey told reporters a few months later, after Obama's triumphant speech at that year's Democratic National Convention. By then, his momentum was strong. Winfrey hadn't just raised millions for Obama's campaign — though celebrities knowing rich people and rich people wanting to be around them at fundraising events is obviously a bonus. The most famous woman in the world had also swayed millions of voters. In fact, a Columbia University study found that Winfrey's endorsement was responsible for an additional one million votes for Obama.

Oprah Winfrey with former First Lady Michelle Obama in one of former US president Barack Obama's campaign trails, 2007. Image: Getty.

Everyone from Katy Perry to LeBron James to Rihanna signed on to help Hillary Clinton in 2016. Beyoncé appeared again, this time in an Instagram video on election day declaring "I'm with her." The video racked up 2.2 million views, but Donald Trump won the election by 70,000 votes in three swing states.

Hillary Clinton with Katy Perry at a concert during the 2016 presidential election. Image: Getty.

Post-mortems asked whether Clinton had been endorsed by too many celebrities. Had the glitz around her contributed to an impression of Clinton as an elite who looked down on ordinary people? Lena Dunham had mused in a campaign video "I'm wondering if I'm hurting her chances of winning," and in the aftermath of a disastrous election, that sounded prescient. Trump didn’t get any notable endorsements, and Nickelback playing his inauguration certainly felt like a barrel-scraping moment. But maybe Trump — reality TV star, onetime Access Hollywood guest and Home Alone cameo actor — didn't need celebrity endorsements because he was a celebrity himself.

By 2020, when Joe Biden was running for president at the height of the pandemic, it seemed safer in all ways to take a stand on issues rather than along party lines. Protesters marched in cities across the country that year about the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officers. The Black Lives Matter movement felt to liberal Americans like a more urgent project than electing a centrist like Biden, even when he was pitted against norms-eroding Trump.

When 2024 began with the same two men preparing to gingerly duke it out, the issues-based approach looked set to continue. Throughout Hollywood's awards season, stars like Ramy Youssef, Billie Eilish and Mark Ruffalo wore "Artists4Ceasfire" pins protesting the Israeli invasion of Gaza, while film stars including Ben Affleck, Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett and America Ferrera signed a petition from the same organisation.

There was one name the Biden campaign told the New York Times they desperately wanted to get through: Taylor Swift. They'd even thought about sending the 81-year-old to a stop on Swift's Eras Tour. But elements of Swift's history suggested the Biden campaign faced an uphill battle.

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Back in 2016, Swift had stayed mum on Clinton and Trump. (A Vox article from that year proclaimed "Taylor Swift is never, ever, ever going to tell you whom she's voting for.") Two years later, concerned about the erosion of civil rights by Republicans, Swift endorsed Democratic candidates in her conservative home state of Tennessee. She took on an even bigger political fight by baking cookies decorated with the Biden/Harris campaign logo the month before the 2020 election.

Even if Kamala Harris succeeds with Miss Americana where Biden did not, the wild ride of the last decade in American politics shows the impact of celebrity on political outcomes is mixed. The two Democrats Swift endorsed lost their races. On the other hand, her 2023 Instagram post about voting led to more than 35,000 registrations.

Trump this time around has sewn up the "sad divorced dad" demographic with Billy Ray Cyrus, Kanye West and Kid Rock pledging their allegiance, while Harris has the best campaign song since, well, Gough Whitlam with Beyoncé's "Freedom". But does celebrity support even matter anymore? Polls show that there's one thing on voters' minds: inflation.

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Feature image: Getty.