Taylors First Political Endorsements Caused a Swift Spike in Voter Registrations
More than 100,000 Americans registered to vote within the 24-hour period after Taylor Swift encouraged her fans to do so in a rare politically-minded Instagram post. About 105,000 people registered in the hours after Swift broke her typical political silence on Instagram Sunday evening, a representative for Vote.org told TIME Tuesday morning. That's a sharp rise for a single-day period compared to the number of new registrations made in the full months of September and August, which saw 190,178 and 56,669 new voters registered in total, respectively. Traffic to Vote.org, a nonprofit organization that provides Americans with voter registration details and other information, spiked at 155,940 users from Sunday night through Monday evening  a significant jump from its average 14,708 daily users, the organization said. "Thank God for Taylor Swift," Kamari Guthrie of Vote.org told BuzzFeed News, which originally reported the sharp rise following Swift's post Monday. About 64,000 of these newly registered voters are between the ages of 18 and 29, the organization said. Guthrie of Vote.org told TIME in an email that despite the slew of deadlines this week that may spur last-minute voter registration across the country, the organization believes Swift's Instagram post encouraged the younger demographic in particular to register. "We're especially happy to see that because we know voting is habit-forming," the organization said Tuesday in a statement. The Reputation singer turned heads over the weekend with an Instagram post, in which she endorsed Democratic Tennessee candidates Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives. She also slammed Republican candidate Marsha Blackburn, a U.S. representative, and her record. Swift urged her 112 million Instagram followers to register to vote  reminding fans based in Tennessee that Oct. 9 was the last day for them to register ahead of the midterm elections. Guthrie of Vote.org says the non-profit organization saw a bump particularly in Tennessee, where 2,144 of the 5,183 new voter registrations in the state this month came within the last day and a half. Swift, who's typically silent on politics, has been criticized by some for not using her massive platform to engage fans on political issues. "In the past I've been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now," Swift wrote in her Sunday post. Her endorsements were met with praise and criticism from her wide fan base and others, including President Donald Trump. He told reporters on Monday that he likes "Taylor's music about 25 percent less now.",