The combined star power of Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Cardi B, Jennifer Lopez, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Bruce Springsteen, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and many, many more failed to carry Kamala Harris over the finish line on Tuesday — a humiliating defeat for the entertainment industry, which had mobilized many of its biggest celebrities this election cycle in the service of the Democrat party.
President-elect Donald Trump’s resounding victory — he won the electoral and popular votes — signals the diminishing power of Hollywood stars as political influencers and message amplifiers. Hollywood pumped up the volume for Kamala Harris to ear-splitting levels in the closing weeks of the campaign, but in the end, American voters tuned them out.
The results don’t bode well for the Hollywood-D.C. partnership. No one likes a flop, especially image-obsessed celebrities who will think twice before publicly backing another major Democrat.
Trump’s win is especially humiliating for Taylor Swift, whose endorsement of Kamala Harris was trumpeted by the corporate news media as an electoral game-changer. Swift was seen as the Holy Grail of celebrity endorsers, thanks to her preternaturally faithful fanbase and her ability to command media coverage.
Swift timed her endorsement for maximum impact, landing just minutes after the ABC News presidential debate in September. But even she seemed less than gung-ho for Kamala, telling her fans: “Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make.”
Beyoncé was also a major get for Kamala Harris. The mega pop-star officially backed Kamala relatively late in the game, appearing, but not performing, at a rally in Houston in late October.
Putting abortion front and center, the singer said: “I’m here as a mother. A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we’re not divided.”
What followed was an unprecedented blitz of celebrity endorsements for Kamala Harris. Nearly ever day in the final two weeks of the campaign, a different Hollywood star was publicly supporting the Democrat ticket. Julia Roberts and George Clooney put out matching his-and-her commercials; Leonardo DiCaprio pushed Kamala as the environmental candidate; J. Lo tried to rally the Puerto Rican vote; and “Wet Ass Pussy” rapper Cardi B a typically raucous
But American voters — reeling from record-high consumer prices, punishing taxes, and the tsunami of illegal immigration — weren’t in the mood for a lecture from fabulously wealthy stars.
Celebrity endorsements fell out of vogue among Democrats following Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016. But they returned to style in 2020, when the Joe Biden campaign recruited stars galore to host virtual rallies and fundraisers during the pandemic.
Kamala Harris had originally wanted to avoid too many celebrity endorsements in the early days of her campaign after she usurped the party from Biden, fearing the same accusations of elitism that plagued Hillary Clinton.
But as her polling showed her virtually tied with Trump in key swing states, Kamala Harris unleashed Hollywood star power in a major way. Other stars who came to her aid late in the game were Lady Gaga, Harrison Ford, and the cast of Disney-Marvel’s The Avengers.
In the end, the stars went down in the biggest bomb of the year — the Kamala Harris campaign.
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