Meet the Swifties Campaigning for Kamala Harris

July 31, 2024:

In less than a week, Swifties have turned their community into an online election headquarters for US vice president Kamala Harris—and the campaign wants in on the effort.

After President Joe Biden announced that he would not seek reelection last week, Emerald Medrano, 22, flipped on the news. As he watched pundits yap about the Democratic ticket, he felt he had to do something. He had never been politically involved, but he had a popular Swift stan account. Not sure of what to do, he posted on X: “I feel like us U.S. swifties should mass organize and help campaign for Kamala Harris and spread how horrendous project 2025 would be to help get people’s butts down the polls.”

The response was immediate and overwhelming. Medrano received hundreds of replies and direct messages from other Swifties offering their support, largely motivated by civil rights, trans rights, and reproductive health care. Some had a background in politics. Others operated massive Swift stan accounts or worked in social media professionally. The fandom served as a social lubricant for the politically-curious Swiftie to get involved and leverage the skills they learned in the community for electoral means.

“The shared interest and knowledge of the fandom is definitely a really great way to bridge that connection over to civic engagement and political activism,” Madeline Miner, 22, a Swifties-for-Kamala social media coordinator, tells WIRED.

Since Medrano’s tweet, Swifties for Kamala has grown to more than 300 members, with thousands more applying to join their Discord server. The group has grown so quickly that it’s already undergone three “restructurings.” Now, it has more than 80,000 followers on TikTok, 48,000 on X, 16,000 on Instagram, and a Substack titled “Paint the Town Blue,” in reference to a Swift lyric. (Other pro-Harris Swiftie accounts have cropped up over the past week, but Swifties for Kamala is the largest.)

The group has four teams: communications, finance, outreach, and social. For social, the teams are assigned to platforms, each with its own lead. Rohan Reagan, 21, who already ran a successful Swiftie account on Instagram, leads the group’s efforts there. For years, Reagan was posting edits he made of Swift; now he’s making them of Harris.

“The reels, the posts, all of those are either created by me or I outsource it from someone else,” Reagan said. “We have a post online on the page right now that someone just did on their own and created all the research infographics on their own. So they brought it to me. I fixed it up a bit, and then posted.”

Before Reagan or any other social lead could create the edits, Leigh Bauer, 23, a social media coordinator, started building out the brand and voice of the account. Bauer drew inspiration from the fandom—specifically the official Swift fan account, @taylornation13, on X.

“They have this very distinct voice that shares news and updates and tells us when merch is happening and when albums are coming out and whatnot. But they also are really, really great about engaging with fans online,” Bauer said. “And so wanting to go off of that to continue to be another familiar voice that fans will understand … but also being a respectable voice.”

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